Promoting Sustainable Change Through Education

Excerpt from LEAD-WiSE:

“No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced,” states renowned biologist Sir David Attenborough. This simple mantra is rooted in far more than ideological nuance, as research has shown that embedding environmental appreciation and understanding into education can have positive effects on students’ willingness to partake in sustainable behaviour. However, this is not limited solely to the classroom, and as the research highlights, there is a need for more interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration in achieving environmental education and encouraging sustainable comportment. This provides businesses with an opportunity to promote change internally with their team, but also with their customers via a sustainable business model.

Major companies are working towards providing their workforce with opportunities to learn more about climate change and social justice and empower them to take action. In 2021, Deloitte launched a one-of-a-kind climate learning program for its 330,000 employees worldwide that aimed to educate them on the challenges of the climate crisis, and what they could do to mitigate it. As of March 2022, over 80% of their workforce had completed the course, and were supportive of it, indicating that they had a better grasp of Deloitte’s own climate mitigation commitments, but also how they could reduce their own impact. Global governments are already working towards implementing a sustainable economy, and companies are embracing a low-carbon future for their operations and products. While these are steps in the right direction, there is a driver of change that is being omitted: people.

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