Through the focus topic of green education in its European Education Area (EEA), the EU is encouraging and supporting the education and training sector to take action for a greener, more sustainable future and to build the sustainability competences of learners. Taking cognizance of the significant social, economic and employment impacts of the green transition, the EEA aims to equip people with the knowledge and skills needed to shape and cope with profound change. It highlights the vital role of education and training systems in catalysing a shift to a sustainable society, ensuring a socially just transition while nurturing nature-positive attitudes.

The Communication on the European Education Area (2020) affirms that the EU is resetting its growth strategy based on sustainability, with the green and digital transitions as its transformative drivers. Education, being at the heart of the European way of life, must also lie at the heart of this reset. This includes supporting the green transition by integrating environmental sustainability perspectives across natural and human sciences, and supporting shifts in skills, methods, processes and cultures. It aims to gather education stakeholders and MS representatives to stimulate peer learning and the development of a European perspective in education that promotes sustainability.

Along with the Council recommendation described previously, a wide range of initiatives and actions on the environment and sustainability are taking place in education and training across Europe. They reflect progress and growing public interest, but more needs to be done so that learning for sustainability becomes a systemic feature of education policy and practice in the EU. These initiatives and actions include:

GreenComp: The European sustainability competence framework
The development of a European sustainability competence framework is one of the policy actions set out in the European Green Deal as a catalyst to promote learning on environmental sustainability in the EU. GreenComp identifies a set of sustainability competences to feed into education programmes to help learners develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that promote ways to think, plan and act with empathy, responsibility, and care for our planet and for public health. It comprises four interrelated competence areas: embodying sustainability values, embracing complexity in sustainability, envisioning sustainable futures, and acting for sustainability. A dedicated community of practice on GreenComp, for everyone interested in green competences, is hosted by the Education for Climate Coalition (next section).

Education for Climate Coalition
A flagship initiative of the EEA by 2025 and essential part of the European Green Deal, this coalition is the European participatory education community  for change towards a green transition and a climate-neutral society. It is part of the EU’s comprehensive approach to environmental sustainability education. As a community of practice, it enriches both the Council recommendation and GreenComp with its participatory approach to supporting teaching and learning for the green transition and sustainable development. Decisions are taken collectively and actions are collaborative. Priorities include training teachers, bridging education with science, developing green skills and competences, and raising awareness. To this end the coalition aspires to create a community led by students and teachers with their schools and networks and other educational actors, learn from as many relevant experiences as possible, and bridge fragmentation between education sectors, domains  and people. It brings together people, including parents, active in every part of education: from early childhood care to adult learning, from museums to industry, as well as education stakeholders and other education bodies at local, regional, national and European levels. It aims to enable a pan-European education community that explores peer initiatives and competences, engages with peers in addressing climate and participatory challenges, and builds capacity through collective solutions. Through participatory challenges the community is encouraged to co-create education actions for sustainability and climate neutrality.

Working groups: sustainability in school education
The new Working Groups support MS and the Commission in making the EEA a reality in tune with the Digital Education Action Plan, the European Skills Agenda, and other EU policy flagships in education, training and skills. One of the 2 sub-groups of the Working Group on schools is dedicated to education for environmental sustainability. It regularly produces reports and key messages as part of the follow-up to the Council recommendation. It promotes mutual learning and exchange on how education can support the move to a greener and more sustainable Europe, including the development of sustainability competences. Other Working Groups on Vocational Education and Training, Adult Learning and Higher Education also deal with the green transition and sustainability.

The EU Learning Corner
This EU initiative enables primary and secondary pupils to find games, competitions and books to discover the EU – in a fun way, in the classroom or at home – and get information on studying or volunteering abroad. It also provides teaching materials targeting all age groups to help inspire teachers on lesson plans, and facilitates networking opportunities with other schools and teachers across the EU. The highlighted topics include Environment, climate and energy and Food, farming, fisheries.

Other EU/EEA initiatives on education
Many other relevant EU/EEA initiatives funded by the LIFE programme, Horizon Europe, InvestEU and others, are described under the section EU-supported projects and initiatives on biodiversity and education.