From the Chair of UK National Commission for UNESCO ESD Co-ordinating Group

1st September 2010

Dear Colleague,

Attached is a new report ‘Education for Sustainable Development in the UK in 2010’, produced by the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Co-ordinating Group, a sub-group of the Education Committee which is part of the UK National Commission for UNESCO (UKNC). We seek your comments on, and analysis of, what the report says.

This document reports on ESD in the UK at the end of April 2010. It is an updating of the report: ESD in the UK in 2008: A Survey of Action, and both itemises recent ESD activity across the UK’s four jurisdictions and offers an initial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the current ESD provision.
The report has been sent to you as a representative of a key stakeholder organisation that is interested and involved in learning and sustainability, and we hope that you will both make use of the report formally and informally amongst your colleagues, considering the issues that have been raised, and forward it to others in your networks who you think might also find it of interest and value.

Please use the report in any way you deem appropriate, for example, via seminars, conferences and events, and let us know if we can contribute to this in any way. The report, along with a brief summary of its main points, can be found on two UKNC websites: www.unesco.org.uk and the ESD Decade website:www.desd.org.uk .

Later in the year, we shall contact you again to find out how you may have used the report, what you think of the points made, how it has helped you with your own work, and what you think the priorities now are for the supporting and promoting of ESD within the UK. We shall collate and analyse responses, sharing outcomes, and use these to decide our own future strategy as a Co-ordinating Group. Meanwhile, if you have any comments to make please send them to the email address below.

In the interim, the Co-ordinating Group will be using the report strategically in order to raise awareness, stimulate debate, and plan further initiatives to further ESD development.
Yours sincerely,

William Scott
Chair: UKNC for UNESCO ESD Co-ordinating Group
w.a.h.scott@bath.ac.uk