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Greening Communities Guidance: Lifelong Learning for Climate and Sustainability Action Year of publication: 2025 Corporate author: UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) | World Organization of the Scout Movement Climate change poses a serious threat to communities around the world, compelling us to protect vulnerable lives and shape resilient futures. By nurturing lifelong learning and empowering local initiatives, communities can drive transformative change – amplifying local efforts into global impact.Green communities are municipalities of any size that embrace lifelong learning to empower individuals to take meaningful climate and sustainability action. This is achieved by extending climate education beyond the classroom and offering learning opportunities in non-formal and informal settings – rooted in and responsive to local culture and context. By engaging learners of all ages across a variety of learning environments, residents of green communities are equipped to take informed, proactive and responsible action for the climate and environment, contributing to more sustainable living.The sections of this document provide an overview of the diverse learners, learning spaces and educational approaches that can contribute to greening communities. It outlines practical steps for developing a comprehensive green learning strategy and action plan that mobilizes learners of all generations in climate and sustainability efforts.Municipal governments, along with a wide range of local stakeholders and change agents in both urban and rural areas, are invited to use this guidance to foster green communities through a lifelong learning lens.Together, let’s green our communities! 
Green School Quality Standard: Greening Every Learning Environment Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO Climate change threatens our planet and future. Schools and other learning institutions are central places for accelerating climate action among learners and local communities. By empowering teachers and students to understand climate change in their own context contribute to making societies more sustainable and climate resilient. This publication provides for the first time ever a quality standard for greening schools and other learning environments. It outlines four core areas for integrating sustainability principles and climate action: 1) school governance, 2) facilities and operation, 3) teaching and learning, and 4) community engagement. Through the Greening Education Partnership, this standard establishes a common language for all stakeholders to jointly reach the global target of greening at least 50% of schools in all countries by 2030. Policy-makers and ministries in charge of education accreditation schemes, as well as educators, learners and communities are encouraged to use the green school quality standard and join the climate-ready school movement to ensure that every learner is equipped to address climate challenges. 
Greening Curriculum Guidance: Teaching and Learning for Climate Action Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO This Guidance responds to the calls from young people for a holistic approach to climate change and sustainability in the curriculum. It outlines a common language on how quality climate change and sustainability can be reflected in the curriculum by setting expected learning outcomes per age group (from 5-year olds and up to 18+ age group, including a lifelong learning approach).This is crucial for accelerating country-level action and ensuring joint monitoring of progress. The objective is to have 90 per cent of all countries include climate change in their curricula by 2030, as established by the Greening Education Partnership.This Guidance aims to support countries, schools or individual practitioners in reassessing their ongoing practices to adopt a more action-oriented, holistic, scientifically accurate, justice-driven and lifelong learning approach to climate change. 
Empowering Learners and Teachers for Climate Action Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO Climate change is impacting every aspect of life around the world and posing a growing threat to people and their livelihoods. It is critical to equip learners with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours to effectively address the climate crisis. Globally, there remain significant gaps in how climate change education and sustainability are taught in classrooms. Getting every learner climate-ready requires a holistic approach that involves adapting curricula, training teachers, rethinking schools and empowering communities. As part of its ongoing work on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and its role as secretariat to the Greening Education Partnership, UNESCO is currently developing a Green School Quality Standard and Greening Curriculum Guidance to mainstream climate education in schools and educational institutions.