What is a Green School?
A Green School is an educational institution that takes a whole-of-institution approach to Education for Sustainable Development. It integrates climate action and sustainability principles into school governance, facilities and operations, teaching and learning, and community engagement.
Green schools empower teachers and students to understand and address climate change, and they promote knowledge and skills for the social, economic, cultural, and environmental aspects of sustainable development.
The requirements to become a green school are defined by the Green school quality standard, published by UNESCO in collaboration with the Greening Education Partnership (GEP). The goal is to green at least 50% of schools in every country by 2030. Nearly 112,000 schools in 98 countries have become Green Schools since the guidance was published in 2024. The number of green schools can be followed in the global tracker, providing data on schools, curricula, teacher capacity, and community programmes, offering an evolving and real-time picture of progress toward 2030.
What is a Green School in practice?
A Green School goes beyond teaching environmental topics. It embeds sustainability in all dimensions of school life from the use of energy, spaces and waste management, to how students learn about their environment and engage with it to protect it. If successful, the process transforms not only the schools but also the lives of learners and their communities, empowered by the skills and values developed. Rather than engaging with sustainability as an abstract concept, students develop real agency and responsibility for their environment through concrete, structured projects.
The Green school quality standard provides for the first time ever a quality standard for greening schools and other learning environments. It outlines four core dimensions for integrating sustainability principles and climate action: school governance, facilities and operation, teaching and learning and community engagement. It also provides a series of concrete recommended actions for each of these core dimensions, and strategic guidance on how to implement them.
UNESCO also published the Greening curriculum guidance to advise governments and practitioners on how to integrate environmental topics across all subjects and levels. It outlines a common language on how quality climate change and sustainability can be reflected in the curriculum by setting expected learning outcomes per age group (from 5-year-olds and up to 18+ age group, including a lifelong learning approach). It also aims to develop learners’ social-emotional and behavioural capacities to inspire action for sustainability.
read more: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/what-you-need-know-about-green-schools
