ECO-COMPETENCES
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GREENCOMP
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ECO-COMPETENCES
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Embodying Sustainability Values
Embodying sustainability values means looking honestly at our own beliefs and worldviews, and asking how they support or block a sustainable future. It reminds us that humans are part of nature, and that justice and fairness must guide choices for both current and future generations.
Sustainability challenges are complex because they connect nature, society, politics, technology, and economics. Our values and perspectives always shape how we see these problems — facts alone are not enough. Knowledge tells us how things are, but values guide us toward how things should be.
Competences like systems thinking or futures literacy only become truly useful when they are linked to strong sustainability values, otherwise they could even support unsustainable paths. Learning for sustainability is most powerful when it is transformative — engaging the head, hands, and heart. This kind of learning encourages reflection, questioning, and action, helping people become active agents of positive change.
Valuing sustainability
This means reflecting on your own beliefs and choices, comparing them with others’, and asking whether they truly support people and the planet. It’s about noticing contradictions (like caring for nature but wasting resources) and adjusting to live more consistently with sustainable values.
Examples:
- A teacher/trainer asks students/participants which habits (like biking, recycling, or switching off lights) they value most and why.
- A youth group sets a “no plastic bottles” rule for meetings and talks about how it reflects their values.
- A community leader openly shares how they changed a daily habit to live closer to their values, inspiring others.
Supporting fairness
This competence is about caring for equity across generations and communities—acknowledging injustices in the past, spotting them today, and committing to fairer choices for tomorrow. It asks us to put ourselves in others’ shoes, whether they’re neighbors or people far away.
Examples:
- An activist highlights how climate change affects poorer communities more, and advocates for fair solutions.
- A trainer/youth worker organizes a role-play where participants act out the perspectives of different groups in a drought.
- A teacher discusses how past generations managed resources, and what younger ones can do differently.
Promoting nature
This is about seeing humans as part of nature, not separate from it. It means respecting ecosystems, caring for other species, and working toward renewal and balance instead of just using nature for human needs.
Examples:
- A group cleans up a river, explaining that it’s not just for people, but for fish, birds, and insects too.
- A teacher brings students outdoors for a lesson to strengthen their sense of belonging in nature.
- A community garden team plants wildflowers to support bees and pollinators, not just human food crops.
Body awareness
Sustainable action also depends on personal resilience and well-being. This competence is about listening to your body, noticing stress or fatigue, and practicing balance so that you can stay active for the long run.
Examples:
- A trainer leads stretching and breathing before long workshops to keep focus.
- An activist practices grounding exercises before protests to stay calm.
- A teacher takes mindful breaks in class, helping students reconnect with themselves.
Post-growth mindset
This is about questioning the belief that more money, products, or consumption always equal progress. It means valuing well-being, solidarity, and sufficiency over constant economic growth. It also involves imagining fairer, simpler, and more balanced futures.
Examples:
- A teacher encourages students to brainstorm ways to celebrate birthdays without buying new things.
- A youth center organizes a “swap day” where clothes, books, and games are exchanged instead of bought.
- A community leader explains why choosing public transport over cars supports both fairness and the environment.
Eco-emotional intelligence
This competence is about recognizing and naming the emotions we feel when faced with ecological challenges, like sadness, anxiety, or anger. Instead of ignoring them, we learn to share and transform them into solidarity, care, and constructive action.
Examples:
- A youth worker runs a circle where participants share feelings about climate change, then brainstorm positive actions.
- A trainer/teacher lets participants/students write letters to the Earth about their hopes and fears, helping them process eco-anxiety.
- A community group holds a gratitude ritual for nature before starting a reforestation project.
Embracing Complexity in Sustainability
Embracing complexity in sustainability means learning to see the bigger picture. It’s about using systems and critical thinking to understand how issues are interconnected, how feedback loops work, and how to frame challenges as sustainability problems.
Our world has become more complex through digitisation, globalisation and rapid technological change, which also accelerate problems like climate change and biodiversity loss. These issues are tied not only to the environment but also to economic activities and everyday lifestyles. Since our economy and society both rely on a planet with limited resources, we need to see these links clearly.
A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is now recognised as a human right, yet disadvantaged groups often face more pollution, harming their health and wellbeing. By identifying hidden connections — like between environmental damage and income inequality — we can better frame challenges and act to prevent or reduce harm, supporting justice and sustainability for all.
Systems thinking
Sustainability challenges don’t exist in isolation. This competence means looking at issues as part of wider systems—considering how they are linked across time, space, and different parts of life. It encourages seeing the “big picture.”
Examples:
- A teacher shows how food waste connects to farming, transport, and landfill methane.
- An activist maps how traffic affects not only air quality but also mental health and community safety.
- A youth worker guides participants to connect personal phone use to global mining practices.
Critical thinking
This is about questioning assumptions, checking evidence, and being aware of how our own background shapes how we see problems. It helps to avoid “easy answers” and to uncover what really lies behind sustainability issues.
Examples:
- A group analyses advertising to spot when “greenwashing” hides harmful practices.
- A teacher asks students to research both pros and cons of renewable energy sources.
- A community leader challenges stereotypes by inviting diverse voices into sustainability discussions.
Problem framing
Before solving a problem, it’s important to define it clearly. This competence is about asking: what’s really at stake? who is affected? how big is the issue? and what time scale are we talking about? Clear framing leads to better solutions.
Examples:
- A youth group breaks down a plastic waste issue into “home,” “school,” and “city” levels.
- A teacher asks students to compare short-term vs. long-term effects of deforestation.
- A community leader frames poor housing insulation as both an energy and social justice problem.
Circular approach
This competence is about seeing the world as cycles instead of straight lines. Waste becomes resource, relationships are symbiotic, and what we take from nature should flow back in regenerative ways.
Examples:
- A youth worker shows how composting turns leftovers into soil for new plants.
- A teacher explains how rainwater harvesting closes the water loop in a school garden.
- A community group builds a repair café where broken items get fixed instead of thrown away.
Holistic awareness
Holistic awareness means noticing how everything connects: personal choices, social systems, and planetary health. It also means combining self-awareness with ecological knowledge, so actions are guided by both feelings and evidence.
Examples:
- A teacher links local car use to global climate impacts, helping students see the bigger picture.
- A youth worker leads a mindfulness walk, inviting participants to notice both inner feelings and outer nature.
- A community group consults ecological data before planning a new urban garden.
Envisioning Sustainable Futures
Envisioning sustainable futures is about imagining different possible futures and identifying the steps we can take today to shape a better tomorrow. It asks us to be adaptable, creative, and open-minded in the face of uncertainty, recognising that there is no single certain future. Instead of seeking guarantees, we explore possibilities.
By analysing the present and understanding how complex systems interact, we can see how today’s choices, values and worldviews shape tomorrow’s outcomes. Creativity, imagination, and even our emotions help us picture alternatives and inspire collective action. Combining logical analysis with imaginative thinking allows us to design paths toward resilient and regenerative societies.
Learners are encouraged to accept uncertainty, think in terms of multiple possible futures (probable, alternative and preferred), and work together to influence the trajectory toward a shared, sustainable future.
Futures literacy
This is about imagining different possible futures, understanding how today’s actions shape tomorrow, and deciding which future we want to work toward. It’s a way to turn hope and creativity into direction.
Examples:
- A class creates two future scenarios for their city—one polluted, one green—and compares paths to each.
- A youth worker invites participants to design posters of “the community in 2050.”
- A community leader runs a storytelling night about how ancestors’ choices shaped today’s world.
Adaptability
The future is uncertain, so this competence is about staying flexible and resilient. It means being ready to adjust plans, rethink strategies, and keep going even when things don’t work out as expected.
Examples:
- A teacher shifts an outdoor class indoors when weather changes, while keeping the sustainability lesson alive.
- A youth group adapts their waste campaign when the school canteen changes suppliers.
- An activist re-plans a protest online after physical gatherings are restricted.
Exploratory thinking
Exploratory thinking encourages curiosity and creativity. It’s about connecting ideas from different fields, experimenting, and imagining new ways of solving problems.
Examples:
- A teacher mixes art and science by asking students to draw “the life of a water droplet.”
- A youth group builds a solar oven using everyday objects.
- A community leader invites musicians to turn climate facts into songs for a festival.
Self-sufficiency skills
This competence focuses on practical knowledge that helps people live more independently and sustainably. It includes skills like gardening, permaculture, bioconstruction, resource reuse, and survival basics.
Examples:
- A youth camp teaches participants to build shelters with natural and recycled materials.
- A school creates a permaculture garden where students learn how to grow food sustainably.
- A community leader organizes a workshop on making eco-friendly cleaning products at home.
Techno-ecological wisdom
Technology can help restore ecosystems, but only if used wisely and respectfully. This competence means combining modern tools with traditional practices, ensuring tech supports nature instead of harming it.
Examples:
- A youth group uses phone apps to track tree growth while also learning from elders’ planting techniques.
- A teacher shows how drones can map wetlands for restoration while respecting local species.
A community leader mixes solar-powered pumps with traditional irrigation knowledge.
Acting for Sustainability
Acting for sustainability means turning awareness into action, both individually and collectively, to help shape a better future. It reminds us that climate change and biodiversity loss won’t reverse without systemic change — not just new technologies, but also cultural shifts, new habits, and fairer institutions.
Every person makes daily choices, as students, consumers, workers, or community members and together these decisions can transform the way society works. Small, one-off actions are not enough; we need consistent, long-term change. Choosing sustainable transport, renewable energy, or circular products that last longer are just a few examples.
At the same time, decision-makers must also share their power so that citizens’ actions can truly make an impact. From voting and volunteering to community projects and global cooperation, collective efforts matter. Learning for sustainability gives us the skills, knowledge, and confidence to take action and reduce our footprint while increasing our positive contributions to the planet.
Political agency
This is about understanding how political systems work, identifying who holds responsibility, and speaking up to demand change. It’s not just voting—it’s also about advocacy and holding decision-makers accountable.
Examples:
- A youth group writes letters to city council asking for more bike lanes.
- A teacher explains how students can influence local policies through petitions.
- A community leader hosts a meeting with local politicians about energy efficiency.
Collective action
Sustainability challenges are too big for one person alone. This competence is about working together, pooling resources, and building power to create change as a group.
Examples:
- Neighbors organize a “car-free day” together in their street.
- A youth group campaigns jointly with another school to ban plastic cups.
- A community creates a local seed bank to share biodiversity.
Individual initiative
Every person has the power to start something. This competence is about seeing opportunities to act, being proactive, and inspiring others by taking the first step.
Examples:
- A student starts bringing reusable containers to the canteen, sparking a new trend.
- A teacher sets up a recycling corner in their classroom.
- An activist begins a small online campaign that grows into a larger movement.
Community living
Living sustainably often means living together with respect and cooperation. This competence is about developing social and emotional intelligence, solidarity, and the ability to make decisions collectively in community settings.
Examples:
- A trainer organises participants into community care teams, so everyone contributes to the cleaning of shared spaces, the cooking, the general wellbeing of the group…
- A youth camp rotates cooking duties so everyone shares responsibility and learns teamwork.
- A trainer runs a session for participants to learn how to use nonviolent communication tools to resolve conflicts respectfully.