Our work

We engage with our members in the sustainability and environmental justice agenda at a global level. Our work is focussed on student- and youth-led organizations, driving change, making connections and scaling impact.

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Building on over a decade of experience, our portfolio of collaborative activities is designed to be easily implemented in existing organizational structures.

Building on over a decade of experience, this portfolio is designed to be easily adapted in new organizations and countries.

• We strengthen the capacity of our members and mobilize collaboration between them.
• We advocate for student- and youth-voices at a global level, to ensure that our members’ voices are heard in decision-making spaces and to influence systemic change.

• We offer learning experiences through workshops, events and consultancy to all organizations working on sustainability and education.
• We do research on students and sustainability, to inform and leverage action to transform education and wider society for a more sustainable and just future.

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Our global member exchange takes place regularly online to connect, update and share knowledge and experiences across our network. Sign-up to emails or join our network to receive our newsletter and the link to the next global member exchange.

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Green Office Movement

The Green Office is a student-led, staff-supported sustainability hub that drives a whole institution approach to embedding sustainability within higher education institutions. Key attributes of the Green Office are engaging and mobilizing the student and staff community and driving institutional systems-change in engagement, operations, curriculum and governance.

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Green Offices generally follow the Green Office Model, that was developed by students at Maastricht University in 2010 and has now been applied at over 100 universities across Europe (and globally).

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The Green Office Movement is our headline program. It brings together a network of Green Offices globally via the membership program. This includes a dedicated series of member network calls, workshops, webinars and in-person symposia, summits and training/development activities.

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To find out more about the Green Office Movement, visit our dedicated website.

Representation

We advocate for student and youth representation and priorities to be included in global decision-making spaces on sustainability and environmental justice. Working with our partners in sustainability governance, we access various high-level panels, forums and congress to promote the work of our member organizations and seek further support to scale and expand programs.

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We are a member organization of the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, Student Action Group (HESI-SAG), an open partnership between several United Nations entities and the higher education community. We sit on the monthly assembly and several sub-groups.

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Through our work with the members of the HESI-SAG, we have represented our members’ at the United National High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. 

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We also work with our partner organizations to mobilize student- and youth-representation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) yearly conferences.

Consultancy and training

We offer learning experiences for all our members. We aim to equip and share sustainability skills, experiences and attributes to co-create a more sustainable and just future. Our Green Office Movement program includes monthly online networking and webinars, and our SOS-International member exchange promotes upcoming events and opportunities.

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Our sustainability and leadership program provides an immersive, in-person experience to connect and explore and vision the future in a creative and collaborative environment.

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The SOS-International summit is our flagship, annual event bringing together members and stakeholders from across the movement.

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We also offer consultancy for organizations seeking to advance their work on sustainability and environmental justice in the education sector.

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Find out more about all our upcoming opportunities in our live updates

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Research

We work with our members to research student- and youth views on sustainability and climate justice to inform and leverage action to transform education and wider society.

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Our research has included work on student priorities and attributes for sustainability in the higher education learning experience and green skills, jobs and sustainable futures.

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Check out our most recent global research project looking at Green Skills and Jobs working in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and young people from across 5 global regions. This was presented at the UN High Level Political Forum in New York, July 2024.