Workshop on Sustainable Lifestyles and Education

The Global Research Forum on Sustainable Production and Consumption (GRF-SPaC http://grf-spc.weebly.com/) and the Partnership for Education and research about Responsible Living (PERL http://www.livingresponsibly.org), both long-time partners of IEF, held a joint strategy workshop at the Vienna University of Economics and Business on 20 November 2015. The workshop was hosted by the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development Vienna (RCE Vienna) at the Institute for Ecological Economics, and was facilitated by Vanessa Timmer of One Earth and GRF-SPaC (see November Leaves). IEF was represented by Victoria Thoresen, PERL Coordinator, and Arthur Dahl.

The topic of the workshop was the Sustainable Lifestyles and Education (SLE) program in the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP) approved at Rio+20 and implemented by UNEP in collaboration with many partners. Two specific projects developed during the workshop were the "Transform" initiative piloted by PERL and "Mobilizing Research for Sustainable Lifestyles" (MORE-SL). These will collaborate closely with the SLE Flagship projects "Igniting Business Investments in Sustainable Lifestyles" (IBIS) and "Transitioning Cities". For more general information on 10YFP and SLE see: http://www.unep.org/10yfp/Programmes/ProgrammeConsultationandCurrentSta….

The workshop agreed to an action plan for activities on sustainable lifestyles and education over the next two years while detailed funding proposals are being developed. It also developed specific activities on education, cities, scenarios, and communications and framing. Values were acknowledged as an important component of the transformation in lifestyles called for in the SLE program and the UN 2030 Agenda.