Abstract
“Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)” means educational activities that intend to empower each citizen to take part as a sovereign to proactively participate in building a sustainable society. The idea of ESD first clearly appeared in the Thessaloniki Declaration of 1997. At the “World Summit on Sustainable Development”, Johannesburg in 2002, the Japanese Government and NGOs proposed 10 years from 2005 as the “Decade of Education for Sustainable Development” (DESD) and DESD was adopted at the United Nations General Assembly 57th meeting in the same year, passed by unanimity. Since then, the numbers of studies and practical reports on ESD have increased. Also in Japan, unique and diverse ESD efforts have been made. The Japanese government has been promoting ESD by arranging several laws and systems concerned with ESD. Furthermore, educators and practitioners have also endeavored to implement ESD in many fields, such as school education, higher education, social education, and local communities. However, ESD has not yet obtained recognition in the Japanese society. The broad range of the ESD concept is one of factors making ESD difficult to understand. On this point, it is necessary to make ESD easy to understand, to “visualize” by establishing media strategies, and share good practices. In order to make progress in ESD, “All Japan” collaboration among all stakeholders such as government, NGOs and the business sector is essential, and the government of Japan is expected to organize the national ESD promotion structure.
