The focus of this project was the link between sustainability and employability, and an aim of the project was to create a definition for sustainability in linking to employability. Using pedagogy that provided incentives through competition and reflections through group tutorials, and use of video case study, the project also sought to develop long-term relationships and close working with employers.

The project was focused on developing new teaching and learning techniques with ‘sustainability’ as the key theme to encourage learners to think about their subjects and their responsibilities as ‘global citizens’. The project involved teaching staff undertaking a series of supported small scale action research projects to develop this in the classroom, while the College pulled together the resources to share and disseminate amongst all staff.

The starting point for this project was the Government’s report ‘Enabling the Transition to a Green Economy: Government and business working together’ (2011) in which a transition to a green economy is deemed essential in order to secure a prosperous economy for the future and the role of the FE and skills sector in this. At the same time, from research within the Colleges & University of Leicester Network's (CULN) Sustainable Development Working Group, it was apparent that more needs to be done to help embed sustainability within curriculum.

The project was designed to enable a better understanding of sustainable development (SD) amongst tutors, and allow them to experiment with SD within different areas of the curriculum. The project aimed to: develop a strategy to embed SD into all curriculum areas; create piloted and evaluated SD activities and lesson plans in four curriculum areas; educate staff on the subject of SD; work with a wide variety of staff to develop SD pedagogies; and create an online ESD resource bank for FE and HE tutors offering lesson plans and resources that can be adapted to suit each curriculum area.