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Leadership for sustainability and climate change

Leadership for sustainability and climate change

30 September 2025

Read time: 3mins

‘Traditional disciplines have established a clear sense of progression and the elements that make it up. This has yet to be adequately articulated with respect to sustainability.’

Stephen Scoffham

Along with many other primary teachers and educationalists, I sign up when I can to participate in Geog Live! This is the regular online webinar which has been run by the Early Years and Primary Phase Committee (EYPPC) for the past few years and attracted hundreds of participants.

The most recent session Geog Live 28 Leadership for Sustainability explored leadership for sustainability and climate change. It was a fabulous event with inputs on curriculum design (Di Swift), primary school practice (Alison Stenton) and practical ways to interpret the current environmental polycrisis (Josphine Dunlop).

I always find Geog Live! stimulating and the point that Di Swift made about how teachers turn subject knowledge into pedagogical knowledge really struck home. This is indeed at the heart of what we do, it demands great professionalism and it’s a fascinating challenge.

There wasn’t time for discussion at the end of this session but the presentations raised a number of questions which I think merit further thought.

Does the Brundtland definition encapsulate how we understand sustainability nowadays?

The idea that we must ‘meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WECD 1987) has achieved classic status. However, this definition was devised nearly forty years ago.

Sustainability is now increasingly seen as being entwinned with social justice. Concerns about health and well-being have come to the fore.

At a time when democratic government, partnership and co-operation between people and nations are increasingly vulnerable is there a need for a more modern conception of sustainability that encompasses these concerns?

Curriculum design involves exploring concepts

Geographers know this and ‘big ideas’ such as place, space, connections and environment have always played a key role in structuring geographical thinking. Other concepts such as pattern, movement and change are sometimes seen as providing an additional layer of basic ideas.

But how does sustainability fit into this framework? Can it be seen as an evaluative concept which sits alongside established disciplinary concepts as was suggested in the webinar? And do we need greater clarity about what constitutes a concept and the extent to which they are subject specific?

Curriculum content

Curriculum content is another area which attracted my attention.Given the empathy that many young children have for animals and the natural environment it is quite understandable that the work they do on sustainability should be slanted towards biodiversity.

Climate change and carbon reduction provides the focus for many other studies – it’s always in the news nowadays. The question which arises is whether these two areas provide an adequate representation of the terrain. Social justice, inclusion and equity are hugely important aspects of sustainability. So too are values, identity and a sense of meaning.

Place matters, especially to geographers. The relationship between humans and nature which was radically transformed by the Agricultural Revolution stands at the heart of sustainability thinking. Does current practice present a simplified and partial approach to sustainability which somehow misses the target?

An emphasis on science runs the danger of missing other aspects of climate change such as its spatial and moral dimensions.

Progression

My final question concerns progression. Traditional disciplines have established a clear sense of progression and the elements that make it up. This has yet to be adequately articulated with respect to sustainability.

What is the difference, for example, between a sustainability literate five, seven, nine and eleven old? Is there an irreducible core of knowledge that we would expect them to have and some key understandings that we would expect them to be able to articulate or demonstrate?

All the speakers at the recent Geog Live! acknowledged in different ways that living within planetary means is the fundamental challenge of our times. If education is to really step up to mark, there is a lot more thinking still to be done. It’s an exciting but demanding challenge and time is not on our side.