As Maartje Zaal (Green Office Movement Coordinator) and Tobias Bartman (Green Office Movement Support) from Students Organizing for Sustainability International were traveling by bus towards the beautifully historic city of Ghent in Belgium, the pair were preparing the last parts of the workshops they would facilitate the following day. There, the two would meet with Femke Lootens and her team, the hosts from the Green Office at the University of Ghent (Green Office Gent). Set up in 2015, it has become a successful Green Office at a higher education institution, organizing many activities, including a Climate Summer School and a prize for the best sustainability-related thesis (FUTUREPROEF).
Green Office Gent is an example of a ‘Green Office’ that follows the Green Office Model and acts as a sustainability platform that empowers students and staff to embed sustainability in the curriculum, research, operations, community, and governance.
Green Offices engage student and staff communities to act towards sustainable development, while also influencing institutional policy, educational opportunities, and research directions to move towards more sustainable practices. While Green Offices inevitably encounter challenges due to institutional barriers, networking and collaboration can lead to overcoming these challenges and achieving institutional sustainability.
Undoubtedly, the Green Office Movement greatly contributes to global efforts towards Education for sustainable development (ESD). ESD seeks to provide learners of all ages with the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and power to address interconnected global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, unsustainable resource use, and inequalities.
In 2015, the Green Office Model piloted by the Students Organizing for Sustainability International (formerly known as rootAbility) received the UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development, a biennial prize that honours outstanding projects that advance the role of education in connecting the social, economic, cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Funded by the Government of Japan, the Prize consists of three biennial awards of US$50,000 for each recipient to further advance ESD.
In 2022, Green Office Gent was the host of the BelGO meet-up for all Belgian Green Offices. This meet-up was organized together with the Flemish Government’s environmental department.
Arriving at the Green Office Gent, Maartje and Tobias are greeted by big cubes, each corresponding to one of the SDGs. There is a spacious, open room. It serves multiple purposes as an office, lecture room, or for movie screenings; perfect for their meeting.
The next day, while the two discussed last-minute details and transformed the room into a workshop space, green officers from all over Belgium were on their way to Ghent as well to exchange good practices, great ideas, enthusiasm, and worries, to bond and learn together.
More than 80 Green Offices around the world aim to give students a voice for sustainability at their institutions, while also helping students develop themselves professionally. To support Green Offices, the Green Office Movement (GOM) offers membership and national and international networking opportunities. In Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium, the GOM is directly responsible for the national coordination of Green Offices. For this reason, the 2022 BelGO meet-up was held to kickstart collaboration, networking, and organizing around common challenges and opportunities.
Alongside the participants from Belgium, Filip, a PhD student from Slovakia joined the meet-up to hear about the establishment and maintenance of Green Offices in order to found one himself at his home institution of Comenius University of Bratislava. In many ways, the meet-up served as an incubator for participants to gather information and strategies required to establish and expand Green Offices.
After a fruitful day of establishing connections and working on common challenges, all participants were inspired, already looking forward to their next meet-up scheduled for October 2022. During this event, participants will have the opportunity to brainstorm additional ways for Green Offices to further develop the global ESD movement.
- More on UNESCO’s work in education for sustainable development
