The Transition to Sustainable Consumption And Production - 1/3

We're here at the eighteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, which this year is considering the cross-cutting theme of sustainable consumption and production. Speaking to us today is professor Victoria Thoresen, she's one of the Baha’i delegates to the commission this year. Victoria is associate professor of education at the university college in Hedmark, Norway. She's also project manager of PERL - the Partnership for Education and Research about Responsible living. A partnership sponsored by the E.U., UNEP, the Italian and Swedish task forces and the Norwegian government. She's also author of the UNEP document “Here and now - education for sustainable consumption” Thank you for being with us today. So, Victoria there has been a lot of talk for several years now, that educational is one of the pillars of the transition to sustainable consumption and production. And so the question then is if we want to talk about concrete measures and concrete outcomes. How do we achieve that, how do we change educational processes and content in such a way, that it becomes transformative and can achieve the many aims and the visions that are being shared at the commission? Well, there are a number of things that need to be done. And some of these have been referred to in this roadmap, which is in the beginning of the document which is called “Here and now - education for sustainable consumption” Which 0:01:51.110,0:01:54.350 means that we have to of course first look at scientific research and see how that could be incorporated in education, we have to work on teacher training we have to work at developing curriculum either including these topics as a theme, which runs through everything, or specific subjects, projects, classes. We have to work on developing creativity and other aspects of education and we have to include working in the community, practical education. There are a number of things like that which are essential. But when you get down to what is the basic transformation of education that's necessary, I would say that there are two things. One is the education generally in the world today, that is extremely theoretical and very abstract and very general. it's only a very exceptional schools that have educational situations where learning is based on the individuals’ own experiences, there own life and very closely connected with what’s happening with the environment around them. So one of the main things that I feel is essential in approaching a kind of education which is active, practical and inspiring is to look at where the individual is, what they're life is, and then to examine the values and what motivates those individuals in their consumption habits. To take the point of departure of understanding the symbolic value of all that we are doing every day, when we run around madly buying or doing other kinds of forms of consumption. And then, you can move to understanding life quality, the purpose of my life in a broader context. and then you could look more closely at questions of health, safety enviromental consequences future scenarios global perspectives. I think i'd like to add one more thing and that is that there is a problem in schools today and education today that we also divide things up in disciplines and subjects very much. This is an issue that deals with our whole life and the whole world. It’s very interdisciplinary and it's important whether you take the point of departure classes on environmental education or you are taking civic education about participation in society, or you take consumer education. That these are looked at together. That no matter where we begin we can look at the wholeness, on the interrelatedness of the processes and the systems that have brought us where we are. So we can understand them, use them to take us forward. So you talk about the fact that issues related to sustainability and particularly consumption or production are all equally interrelated. So how would that be moving into a curriculum that as you remarked has traditionally been compartmentalized? How does an educator begin to do that? Well, one way is to use the thematic approach. To say okay, maybe we're going to talk about a glass of water, then, let's look at that glass of water you can say from cradle to grave but more than just that, we can look at it from the point of view of what does it mean for a person to have a glass of water, what happens when they don’t have it? How can we insure that people everywhere on the globe do have that glass of clean water? And what are the obstacles to that? And then develop that into an understanding of the global context and the context which is based on on a vision, or perhaps one could say basic principles. If you believe, that every human being on the face of the Earth is a member of your family you wouldn't want your family to thirst right? Or have to drink muddy or polluted water. So you would make an efford to learn how everyone in my family can get clean glass of water. And in the same way, in teaching in schools if the teacher has this common vision of oneness of humanity then, in their education, in the way they approach themes they can help the learner understand, that yes, this has to do with me, this has to do with my community, but also these aspects have to do with the greater society, and the global community in which we are a part of. So, when I 0:06:23.249,0:06:25.470 to use the water example have taken my aspirins and toss out the rest of the package in the toilet, and I don't realize that, that then goes into the water system goes into the ground system again to fix the ground water and comes back to us through polluted fish and other things, that I have lost a part of that understanding the consequences of what my little glass of water, and my little pill does to the world.