Learning for sustainable development – the Gothenburg story

Learning for sustainable development – the Gothenburg story

Andersson, U.
Boman, J.

2010-10-28

Shortly before the EU summit in Gothenburg in 2001, the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology arranged their first international conference in learning for sustainable development, entitled „Knowledge and Learning for a Sustainable Society?. At the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002, Sweden offered to arrange an international conference on learning for sustainable development. The conference was held in Gothenburg on May 4-7, 2004 and was entitled „Learning to Change Our World – the Gothenburg Consultation for Sustainable Development?. Some 350 delegates from more than 70 countries took part. At the end of the conference the chancellors of the two universities promised to arrange another conference as a follow up. To preserve the knowledge and experience gathered at the consultation in 2004 and to prepare for the follow up conference, the Centre for Environment and Sustainability (GMV) initiated four international workshops on learning for sustainable development in higher education, in school, in preschool and in informal learning. The final workshops and conference, „Visions and Preparations for a Common Blueprint on Education for Sustainable Development? took place in Gothenburg, 2008, at the invitation of the two UNESCO Chairs in education for sustainable development, Professor Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson, University of Gothenburg, and Professor John Holmberg, Chalmers University of Technology. Some 50 delegates from more than 15 countries took part in the workshop, which brought together ESD experts as well as policy-makers and decision makers for an exchange of ideas of ESD. The final document is called „The Gothenburg Recommendations on Education for Sustainable Development? and calls on governments, civil society, and, in particular, educators to prioritise processes that develop and strengthen education for sustainable development. This document was also later fed into the UN mid-term review held in Bonn spring 2009.

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Conference proceedings

conference paper

(c) 2010 Andersson, U.; Boman, J.