The ultimate objective of the Plan is to promote a cultural and systemic change that allows an adequate response to contemporary socio-environmental challenges in a coordinated, participatory way and with institutional and social co-responsibility, accelerating the ecological transition.

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MEFP) have launched the public participation process for the draft Environmental Education for Sustainability Action Plan (PAEAS), which will be open until 26 May.

The preparation of the PAEAS aims to define the strategic lines of environmental and sustainable education (EAS) in Spain for the next five years, offering a consensual framework from which to reinforce, with tools of social and cultural influence – communication, education, training and participation – those policies that must face climate and environmental challenges.

The preparation of the PAEAS seeks to define a participatory framework in which, based on the diagnosis of the current situation of environmental education in Spain, the strategic areas of action are identified, as well as the objectives, main measures and specific actions to be developed by the different sectors and agents involved.

The first step to address this work of preparing the PAEAS has consisted of the development of an extensive process of consultation and participation of more than 300 experts in environmental education and professionals from a series of sectors that maintain a close link with environmental education in our country. The base document gathers the visions and ideas of these experts. In this first phase, a work organized by sector was defined, based on the White Paper on Environmental Education in Spain, published 20 years ago, during which the new challenges in terms of sustainability have made clear the need to coordinate new initiatives in the field of environmental education for sustainability, in a context in which the demand for environmental knowledge by citizens has increased.

Once this phase has been concluded and based on this participatory work, a Working Group made up of MITECO and the MEFP has worked on the drafting of the Plan.

This Action Plan establishes a consensual framework in which six operational axes and 61 key actions are proposed to be developed by the General State Administration, different public sector bodies, autonomous communities, local entities and the private initiative in the field of EAS, within a period of 5 years from its approval. as well as work guidelines and proposals for action for other sectors and agents involved.

The ultimate objective of the Plan is to promote a cultural and systemic change that allows an adequate response to contemporary socio-environmental challenges in a coordinated, participatory way and with institutional and social co-responsibility, accelerating the ecological transition.