Adapted for the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools from an article written for Interconnected, the magazine published by the Institute for Global Learning (formerly the Global Education Benchmark Group).

By Michèle Andrews, Co-Founder & Executive Director at DoorNumberOne.org

The year 2025 is a significant moment in time. 2030 marks the end of the decade of action, towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and crucial targets in the climate and biodiversity crises. The World Economic Forum’s most recent annual Risk Report forecasts that in less than 10 years the top four global risks will be related to the climate and biodiversity crises: extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, critical change to earth systems, and natural resource shortages. 

With 8th graders set to graduate in 2030, and 3rd graders in 2035, how should schools be meeting this moment? What opportunity does this crisis present to girls’ schools across the world?

There is a need to bring empathy, collaboration, creativity, and a more holistic and relational approach to forging a courageous new path to a healthy, thriving world for all. The future is calling for feminine leadership. So how are we modelling this approach now? And how are we preparing our students to lead in all sectors of society? 

Girls’ schools must prepare students for a future where they will likely be disproportionately impacted by these escalating crises, and where their leadership will be essential to creating a healthy, thriving future for all.

Sidebar: Global Goals for 2030

In 2012 the UN Sustainable Development Goals were born – also named “the 2030 Agenda“. The SDGs have become a focal point for education in many schools around the world in the years since. Gender equality is Goal #5.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, involving 196 countries, created two main near-term targets: greenhouse gas emissions peaking before 2025, and declining 43% by 2030. Notably, the person who led the world to this agreement is Costa Rican Christiana Figueres, who was Executive Secretary to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010 to 2016. She continues to lead bold global climate and nature action. Learn about the gender action plan supporting the Paris Agreement here.

In December 2022, 188 governments convened at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montréal, the output of which was the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The GBF includes specific measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 percent of the planet and 30 percent of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030, dubbed 30x30x30. There are 23 specific targets ranging from halving global food waste to restoring 30% of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, to mobilizing at least $200 billion per year for biodiversity-related funding. The GBF highlights the unique role of gender in achieving these goals.

Here are 8 ways your school can respond to this urgent call to action. 

1. 1. Aspire for Regeneration

We need leaders willing to aim beyond “green” and “sustainable” – which typically represent practices that are “less bad” for life on Earth – towards being regenerative. Being regenerative is defined as creating and nurturing the conditions that enable all forms of life to thrive, in balance with Earth systems. We need to change our mindset from less bad to thriving! When we at DoorNumberOne.org work with schools, we ask the question, what if each choice you made and each action you took contributed to a thriving life for all people and the more-than-human world? 

Introducing regeneration creates the opportunity to heal, restore and create a beautiful, thriving future for all. It sparks the imagination in a new way, and brings hope and inspiration to our ongoing efforts to address the intersecting crises we face. The climate and biodiversity crises are “threat multipliers” – people already facing social inequities are disproportionately impacted by extreme weather events, wildfires, desertification, and rising sea levels. What’s becoming clear is that we need to think about our communities being interconnected with our kin in the more-than-human world. As whole living systems, humans together with nature, we can create new solutions from often siloed streams. Strength and action will result from one coordinated community-wide effort that integrates: wellness, civic engagement, conservation work, energy and carbon management, waste diversion, and DEIBJ (diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice).

2. 2. Lead with Hope

Take on the practice of hope as a school, and lead your community with it. Share your own stories of impact within your school, and beyond. Point people to key resources highlighting the good news, the solutions happening locally and globally.

Sidebar: A Crisis of Hope – Especially in our Girls

A global study of youth in 10 countries published in The Lancet in 2021 and another in Canada in 2022 reported alarming but not unsurprising levels of concerns among our youth. In both studies, over 40% of respondents reported that their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily lives. Eco-anxiety is a growing part of mental health struggles in all ages. Doomism has now been added to the field of study in this space, with some believing that it has overtaken denial and become the dominant threat to action.

Research is increasingly pointing to higher rates of eco-depression amongst women and gender-diverse people. This trend is also reflected in our youth. Perhaps the most worrying research is from the United Kingdom where over 2,400 children from ages 11 to 14 were surveyed (see Figure 1). The fact that any children of this age are worrying about the world should be a call to action for all of us, but the gender differences are also crucial to recognize and address.

Global climate leaders including Elin Kelsey, Katherine Hayhoe, Joanna Macy and Christina Figueres recommend hope as a choice, a practice and a strategy for action in climate and nature. They all recommend informing ourselves and sharing stories about how people are making a difference and achieving positive results in their communities. It is when we believe we have the power to make a difference, when we believe that our actions can have an impact, that we will bother to take action at all.

Elin Kelsey talks about hope as “wildly contagious”. Leading with hope-filled action will attract and unite your students, staff and community partners, taking you farther, faster. 

On Instagram, follow and tag @DoorNumberOneNFP and we’ll amplify your messages of hope. 

3. 3. Recognize our Connection with and as Nature 

The culture of human dominance that has evolved has led to this moment of crisis we face. In order to restore balance to our Earth systems – to our only home – we need to bring about a fundamental re-balancing in our relationship with other living organisms. We need to realize that we are nature, and we have many responsibilities to our kin in the natural world.

When we look to our sisters in Indigenous communities, we remember that women and girls have been leading in climate and nature action in their communities for millenia. In many Indigenous cultures it is the women who are the knowledge keepers. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Indigenous author and botanist, writes about rebuilding a relationship of reciprocity with other species in her books Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. Kaya Hill, a young Indigenous journalist, wrote this essay on Indigenous Women and their connection to the Earth and Her Waters. 

It is time for all women to recognize and remember our important place in our local, regional and global eco-systems.

4. 4. Treat This Crisis As The Wellbeing Issue It Is

The many social justice crises we face, including gender inequality, are compounded by the climate and biodiversity crises. Whether it is the increasing rates of asthma from deteriorating air quality, more tick-borne diseases as regional temperatures become more conducive to tick populations, or the increasing prevalence of climate grief and depression, there is no question human health and wellbeing is suffering. The disproportionate impacts on women’s health are well documented. 

School wellness strategies and programs need to factor in the physical and emotional toll that the climate and biodiversity crises are having. Thoughtbox Education, founded and led by women educators in the UK, has developed a model and a whole suite of resources for TripleWellbeing, where they demonstrate the fundamental connections between caring for ourselves, each other, and the earth. After several years, they have many examples of schools incorporating TripleWellbeing into their school culture with tremendous results.

5. 5. Walk the Talk: Make a Public, Whole-School Commitment

Tapping into feminine leadership means leading with values and authenticity. More than teaching about climate and biodiversity, we must enact that learning in our own institutions and bring our whole community along with us. 

There are many ways to make your climate and nature commitments public, including embedding them in your strategic plan and in your communications. You can take our Climate & Nature Leadership Pledge. This free pledge publicly places you amongst peer schools that are also taking a bold leadership stance. Your school will “walk the talk”, bringing your curricular learning goals around climate and nature into practice. The pledge will enable you to rally your community and demonstrate to them your commitment to the future.

Sidebar: Whole-School Climate & Nature Action

In the work that DoorNumberOne.org does with schools, whole-school action involves the whole school: governance, operations, the curricular and co-curricular programs, buildings and grounds, and perhaps most importantly, school culture. The schools we work with are turning their schools into real-time learning labs where climate and nature learning is applied, and everyone can contribute, including students, teachers, operations staff, administrators, parents, alumni, and community partners. Learn more about our Climate Action Accelerator Program and related resources for schools.

7. 6. 6. Work as a System

   Just like the local forest, wetland or coral reef, schools are systems, with innumerable relationships and interconnections. The health and vitality of any system can improve when all parts are working together towards common goals.  

   We also see that the climate and biodiversity crises are “threat multipliers”. People already facing social inequities –  especially women and gender-diverse people – are disproportionately impacted by extreme weather events, wildfires, desertification, air and water pollution and rising sea levels. 

   So as we aim to build thriving communities for all, we need to work together, across disciplines, departments, roles, and ages. Students and staff in math, physics, English and facilities can develop, implement and communicate about the energy and carbon management plan for a school. The Sustainability and DEIBJ (diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice) teams can work together with  the purchasing department on a local, zero-waste food purchasing plan and gardening initiative that supports equity-deserving local farmers and gives back to community organizations. The more diverse the group planning the action, the more likely it will be to achieve a broad set of community-minded goals that will benefit all the people, and the more-than-human world.

   Like any other important initiative, gathering broad stakeholder input and supporting diverse teams in their work takes time. Everyone also needs time and in many cases funding to learn and network with others. You will need to make this a priority in your professional learning calendars and budgets. You can also reach out to your associations to ensure they are bringing experts and workshop opportunities to their conference and professional learning programs.

8. 7. Give Everyone A Pathway To Contribute Together, In Community

You can safely assume that the majority of your faculty and staff have concerns about the crisis we are in, right alongside your students. Most people want to help, and need some direction to determine how they can contribute, in a meaningful way, to solutions. Everyone in the school needs to be part of preparing and supporting the students to step into leadership whenever they feel ready – which could be as soon as right now!

When you create cross-community teams and give them the support they need, they will create exciting, innovative, high-impact initiatives, and build enthusiasm and organizational capacity. Women are known for their exceptional intergenerational partnerships. This is  a huge opportunity to enhance the experiences of your students as well as attract incredible women leaders from your community into your school. 

Action is a crucial antidote to despair. When people have an opportunity to contribute, working alongside peers as well as folks from different ages and different parts of your school community, it can be a meaningful, positive contribution to their wellbeing. 

9. 8. Rise to your School’s Potential for Impact

With a bold, whole-school approach, consider your potential for impact. Studies show what educators already know – young people have tremendous influence on their families. DoorNumberOne.org thinks about potential impact in terms of kitchen tables. How many kitchen tables are in your community, where your students share their excitement, inspiration, and homework each day? Inspiration can also travel home with staff, parents, administrators, community partners, and board members – add those tables to the tally. Then consider who sits at those tables. What influence do they have in their business, government, community organizations and social settings?

Imagine what your potential impact could be if your school became engaged in bold, exciting, hope-filled goals towards a just, healthy, thriving future for all. Your school’s potential for impact is incalculable. 

It is time for girls’ schools to step into a new level of meaningful leadership in taking gender-responsive, intergenerational action to address the climate and nature crises. If not us, who? If not now, when? These timeless questions have never been more relevant. We hope you will join DoorNumberOne.org in leading the K-12 sector to build a movement too exciting to resist, and too powerful to ignore. 

#buildingamovement

Find more resources on women leading in climate and nature here.