ABSTRACT
The United Nations (UN) has declared 2005–2014 to be the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. With senior political figures from many nations now openly describing global warming as a major—or even the greatest—threat, to humankind, such a UN declaration seems timely. The issue of ‘sustainability’ and the educational response to it have been features of academic life and discourse in aspects of higher education (HE) (e.g. geography, earth sciences, life sciences, education) for some years, as exemplified in the first instalment of this symposium (Higgitt et al., 2005). Such interest has been institutionally idiosyncratic and the responses patchy, and it remains to be seen whether this new interest amongst policy-makers will precipitate a more focused and concerted approach to the issues.
