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Sustainability: New climate education document aims to give children agency

The drive to net zero includes educating children on climate change and sustainability. Dr Diane Boyd has written Sustainability Matters in Early Childhood, a new resource designed to help settings do just that
Childbase Partnership has reduced the carbon footprint of its 45 settings
Childbase Partnership has reduced the carbon footprint of its 45 settings

In 2021, the Government published its net zero strategy, with ‘a legally binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050’.

Realising this policy objective is a challenge, especially given competing policy agendas, but in 2022, the Department for Education launched its ‘sustainability for education and children's services systems’ strategy. Within it the message was that we all have an important role to play in safeguarding our planet. Climate education is a key theme, and within this a stated desire to give children a greater connection to nature.

Because of this the DfE's Early Years Unit approached me to develop a small supporting document (Sustainability Matters) that would allow early childhood settings to understand how the strategy relates to them. This resource is focused on the UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on limiting and adapting to climate change and sits alongside the larger resource I produced with NCFE (see Further information), which provides details of all SDGs.

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