Centro Universitário Facens, Brazil

Sustainable Educator Award – Changemakers Celebration

The Sustainable Educator Award is an initiative designed by the Social Innovation Laboratory (LIS) in partnership with the Facens’ Sustainability Committee which aims to recognize educators who are promoting sustainability in the classroom or through research guidance. We understand the Sustainable Educator Award plays a strategic role in breaking the paradigm as it shows peer educators that all knowledge taught can promote conditions that sustain life. According to Leonardo Boff, there are two ways of being-in-the-world: the work through which we model and intervene in the world and the care for which we feel responsible for it.

Since 2019, the award has been one of the numerous strategies that LIS has implemented to foster the transformation of the University Centre towards a model of sustainable education: a model in which our students, future professionals, promote new interventions in the world with work impregnated with meaning.  

What the Judges Thought

This is a well-organised project with a high impact on the institution as a whole. Motivating and empowering lecturers and educators to incorporate sustainability into their teaching and learning practice is a vital step in delivering education for sustainable development (ESD). We loved the public voting mechanism which in itself engaged more people in sustainability education and thought the repository of submissions is really valuable. The prizes were attractive.

We’d love to see how the project develops, particularly to see if further institutions can get involved to create a ‘ripple’ of impact and how the project can be ‘hardwired’ so it is embedded across the whole institution. A great project that’s changing mindsets. 

What it Means to Win

"I share this award with all educators who believe in and are continuously dedicated to an education aiming at a more just and ecologically healthy society. The winners of this recognition are all of us! The seeds of Sustainable Education are beginning to bear the first fruits for the future we want for Facens. I am proud of all of you!"

Fabiano Prado Marques, Dean 

Top 3 Learnings

1. The Award offers opportunities for professors to dare and transform the way they share and disseminate knowledge.
2. There is no area of knowledge that cannot contribute to sustainability.
3. Sustainability as a starting point for other sensitive discussions within the institution, such as autism and suicide.