European Trade Union Committee for Education

The project “Education for Social Change: The role of Education Trade Unions in addressing sustainable environmental development” aims at building the capacity of education trade unions to prepare their affiliates to address environmental questions and climate emergency for sustainable development in education and training through social dialogue and collective bargaining with the view to address the impact that climate emergency and environmental sustainability measures have on the education sector in the European region

• Introduction
• Research
• Kick-off Conference
• Training Workshops
• Practical guidelines for trade unions
• Closing Conference
• Film documentary

Climate emergency and environmental issues require a drastic social change, including individual and collective changes in our mentality, behaviour, lifestyle and education is a crucial tool for ensuring sustainable development of environment.  Education trade unions have a key role in ensuring that not only education about sustainable environmental development is integrated into all levels and aspects of education systems, but also that it is accompanied by sustainable and adequate technical, financial and staff resources and that education staff receive the sufficient professional support.

Following the demand of ETUCE member organisations to support their work on sustainable development and its link to employment issues in the education sector, ETUCE has launched its first-ever project on the “Education for Social Change: The role of Education Trade Unions in addressing sustainable environmental development” which aims to build the capacity of education trade unions to prepare their affiliates to address environmental questions and climate emergency for sustainable development in education and training through social dialogue and collective bargaining with the view to address the impact that climate emergency and environmental sustainability measures have on the education sector in the European region.

The 2-year project (January 2021 – December  2022), co-funded by the European Commission, sets the ground for a more central role of education trade unions in implementing the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Fostering the topic of education on sustainable environmental development within the Social Dialogue in Education, the project seeks to ensure a coherent and robust integration of learning about sustainable approaches to the environment in education policies and to promote concrete trade union measures and practices in addressing the environmental issues and sustainable development in education and in addressing in social dialogue and collective bargaining at all levels the impact of environmental problems on education institutions and teachers, academics, and other education personnel.

In order to raise the awareness on the importance of addressing the sustainable environmental development and climate emergency in education and the key role of education trade unions in this work, the project envisions producing reusable water bottles with the logo of the project as give-aways. These bottles are distributed among ETUCE member organisations and national and European policymakers, education employers and other stakeholders in education in the frame of the project events.