A survey of national environmental education and education for sustainable development laws and policies

The central role of EE and ESD in fostering both the values and the skills necessary to fulfill the broader goals of sustainable development is reinforced by the United Nations recent launch of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development in 2005. [...] One of the key components of NEEA is the establishment of the Office of Environmental Education as a new and distinct branch of the Environmental Protection Agency. [...] One of the key components of the policy statement is that all K-12 schools are required to develop their own environmental management plan, which will address curriculum and the environmental performance of the school itself, in a manner similar to the implementation of ISO 14001 standards (NSW Department of Education and Training, 2001). [...] These objectives include general education for sustainable development, the environmental impact of the department of education itself and its associate departments, the environmental impact of the education estate and local and global partnerships (Clarke, 2003). [...] The purposes of the legislation are to foster a broad based willingness to commit to environmental conservation activities on a volunteer basis and the promotion of education efforts geared toward the improvement of citizens understanding of environmental conservation (Government of Japan, 2003).