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Raquel Jurado
Eco-Campus Conference Takeaways

Takeaways from Eco-Campus International Conference 2025

 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | 18–20 September 2025 

The Eco-Campus International Conference (ECIC) 2025 brought together 150 participants from around 40 countries including higher education leaders, researchers, students, and partners from around the world to explore how universities can lead systemic climate action. Co-organised by the Green Growth Asia Foundation (GGAF) and the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), with  IMT-GT UNINET and the International Youth Centre (IYC), this year’s conference advanced the theme: “Transforming Higher Education for Climate Action: A Whole-System Approach.” 

The event also marked the 10th anniversary of GGAF - a milestone to celebrate! 

Inspiring Voices 

  • We were honoured by the presence of Her Highness Tengku Puteri Raja Ilisha Ameera, representing the Crown Prince of Pahang, who called on the Ministry of Education to endorse Eco-Campus as a national initiative

  • Inspiring keynote speaker Tan Sri Dzul reminded us that “climate change requires whole system change”, urging a shift from “Manpower, Mindset and Machine” to “Humanity, Heartset and High-touch (compassion) through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)” 

  • Katrin Kohl (UNESCO Co-Chair, York University) and Dr. Subarna Sivapalan (University of Nottingham Malaysia) shared findings from the UNESCO Transforming Futures project in a highly interactive session, exploring the Whole Institution Approach in the context of Higher Education and how this vision can be expanded to create a ‘Whole-System Approach’. 

  • Professor Charles Hopkins (FEE/UNESCO Chair) ran a co-creative session ‘FEE University’ exploring 12 themes for systemic transformation in higher education proposed by participants, including sustainable leadership, inclusivity, student advocacy, and alumni engagement.   

  • Pramod Kumar Sharma and Lee Wray-Davies (FEE Denmark) led a hands-on workshop on embedding ecosystem restoration in practice, taking frameworks into flagship projects. 

  • We were also joined by Katerina Ananiadou, Coordinator of the Greening Education Partnership (GEP) Secretariat, UNESCO Paris who reinforced the essential role of higher education within the GEP vision. 

  • The conference closed with an inspiring address by Prof. Dato’ Dr. Nor Aieni Haji Mokhtar, who reflected on her 40 years of academic and leadership experience to remind us of the transformative role of higher education in building resilience and sustainability.

 

Parallel Sessions 

Across six tracks, the sessions showcased the diversity of approaches driving sustainability in education: 

  • Whole-system approaches (chaired by Karen Chand, UN SDSN) highlighted interdisciplinarity, teacher training, and the role of HE in shaping real policy change. 

  • Cross-sector partnerships (chaired by Dr. S. Anandan Shanmugam, GGAF) shared inspiring collaborations between HEIs, schools, NGOs, and industry. 

  • Greening vocational education (chaired by Prof. Dr. Aftab Uddin, Bangladesh) presented how TVET and career counselling can prepare a green workforce. 

  • Greening education across all levels (chaired by Prof. Paul Pace, FEE Malta) showed how local initiatives, from gardens to ethnographic studies, link schools and communities with higher education. 

  • Sustainable campus initiatives (chaired by Margarida Gomes, ABAAE, Portugal) offered case studies from Portugal, Bangladesh, Ireland, India, Qatar, and Africa on embedding sustainability and treating campuses as living laboratories. 

  • Student leadership (chaired by Deirdre O’Carroll, An Taisce, Ireland) celebrated student committees and research-led projects in areas such as renewable energy, biodiversity, and the circular economy. 

Key outcomes

ECIC 2025 confirmed that the future of sustainability education lies in bridging levels, disciplines, and sectors - surfacing the many dimensions, collaborations, and partnerships that define a whole-system approach, and clarifying the vital roles higher education must play in driving climate-responsive transformation.

ECIC 2025 made clear that higher education is both a driver of systemic change and a bridge across education levels and sectors. Emerging outcomes included: 

  • A shared articulation of the dimensions of a Whole-System Approach: governance, pedagogy, student leadership, teacher training, vocational pathways, industry partnerships, internships, policy engagement, campus operations, applied research, values, and contextual adaptation. 

  • Renewed emphasis on teacher training and Continuous Professional Development to mainstream Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) across all levels of education. 

  • Strong recognition of student leadership as central to climate solutions. 

  • Evidence of how partnerships and local innovation can scale into global impact. 

These align directly with the UNESCO Greening Education Partnership (GEP), which calls for system-wide change across schools, teacher training, curricula, and whole-institution transformation.

 With Thanks 

Our deepest thanks to our hosts and co-organisers, Green Growth Asia Foundation (GGAF), and to our partners and supporters: IMT-GT UNINET, International Youth Centre (IYC) Kuala Lumpur, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Ministry of Education Malaysia, UNESCO, SDSN, Eco-Campus Sustainability Action Nexus, Asian Development Bank, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, Boh Tea Malaysia, Yayasan Petronas, The Datai Pledge, Axia Foundation. The support you’ve given has been such a huge help in making this gathering a reality. 


Cloverhill: The world’s first Prison College awarded Green Flag

Cloverhill Prison CDETB staff and prisoners have been working hard for over two years towards this historic accomplishment. The prison college is one of the newer members of the Irish Green-Campus community which is connected to a wider global network of campuses through an international programme called Eco-Campus. The Green Flag was presented following a rigorous evaluation process by an expert panel of Cloverhill Prison College’s performance in the areas of Litter & Waste and Energy Conservation, validated by a formal site visit. 

Similar to An Taisce’s other well-known Green-Schools [Eco-Schools in Ireland] and Blue Flag awards, the Green-Campus Flag recognises outstanding achievements. Cloverhill Prison has embedded sustainability into its operations and continues to foster a culture of environmental stewardship and demonstrated how these practices can work in parallel with prisoner care and educational programmes. Sustainable practices across the site include tackling food waste, materials recycling, LED lighting and even biodiversity enhancements. 

As the first prison college in the country to engage with the Green-Campus Programme, Cloverhill Prison college has a unique opportunity to drive the transition to a sustainable and low-carbon prison model. 

Prior to registering for An Taisce’s Green-Campus Programme, the prison was already successfully recycling cardboard, so this gave an opportunity for officers and staff to run a site-wide audit to identify how many other items were possible to recycle effectively. Cloverhill Prison was then able to make systematic changes by sourcing a bio-digester for food waste and introducing new methods to facilitate the recycling of wood, metals, plastics, mattresses, electrical items and providing ways for prisoners to segregate waste materials inside cells. 

The prison’s bio-digester is used daily, and the food waste is recycled as compost. This has been a huge success, and the by-product from this has been used by staff and the wider community, including through donations to the local Cherry Orchard Community Gardens. 

Cloverhill Prison is a remand prison and generally has between 470- 500 men living in the facility at any given time. The prison college falls under the City of Dublin Education and Training Board. Approximately 100 students attend a variety of courses each week. These would include Red Cross Modules, Basic Horticulture, Life Cycles & Habitat, Environmental Sustainability. Information Technology promoting sustainability, Cookery, English, Maths, Music and Art.  

As the prison is open 24-hours a day, seven-days a week, it requires a lot of energy to run. A site-wide review was conducted to identify how energy could be saved. This included looking at smaller actions like switching off lights when not in use, to much larger tasks such as phasing in LED lights, energy-sharing plans with the neighbouring Wheatfield Prison and rolling out enhancements to its Building Management System. There is also an exploration of producing energy awareness campaigns with the training students who could create information posters and other materials to educate and inform the rest of the prison population on energy use. 

On the announcement of the award, Green-Campus Programme Manager, Deirdre O’Carroll said:

“I would like to congratulate Cloverhill Prison CDETB Green Campus on achievements to date culminating in the award of this first green flag. As the first Prison College in the world to be awarded a green flag, we are extremely proud to be with you on your sustainability journey and look forward to working with you long into the future. It is hoped that your leadership will provide inspiration to other Prison College sites. Thank you for your continued support of and commitment to the Green Campus programme.” 

Cloverhill Prison Governor Paul Gibney commented:

“Cloverhill Prison is a remand prison, which has capacity for 435 remand prisoners. However, due to overcrowding in the wider prison estate, Cloverhill Prison generally have between 470- 500 men in our care at any one time. Due to the nature of a remand prison, prisoners are remanded in custody pending a court date or trial, therefore, our prison population is dynamic in nature and changes on a daily basis. As we also have over 350 staff working in Cloverhill and the prison is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, we are a community in ourselves.  Over two years ago we decided to embark on reducing our waste and energy usage throughout the Cloverhill Campus.  With the support and guidance of An Taisce and by forming a Green Team Committee we have successfully reduced our waste considerably and lowered our consumption of energy. This was achieved by a collective effort of small and consistent changes.  We are now delighted to have achieved the status of a Green Campus and we will continue to raise staff and prisoner awareness and examine other areas such as biodiversity throughout the campus.  We are also encouraging and advising other prisons throughout the country on how they can make changes and improvements to develop a sustainable culture of environmental awareness in tandem with prisoner care and educational programmes”. 

 

Olivia Copsey, Director of Education for the Foundation for Environmental Education adds:

“By achieving the International Green Flag, Cloverhill Prison sets an inspiring new standard for all types of education services which previously thought sustainability did not include them. After 17 years of running the FEE EcoCampus programme, in what is now 24 countries and over 200 institutions globally, we are thrilled to see environmental responsibility and learning adopted as core values across such diverse institutions. With green skills key to creating sustainable and peaceful societies, examples such as Cloverhill’s gives us great hope for a greener future”. 

The award was given under the prison’s chosen themes of Waste and Energy, however officers and teaching staff did much more than was required. While biodiversity was not one of the major examined themes, it was impressive to see the enhancement of green spaces such as the beautiful garden areas maintained by staff and prisoners and the introduction of biodiversity elements into learning on site. The ground-cover flowers on show like clovers, daisies, Bird’s-foot trefoil and plantain that are emerging naturally in the green areas are extremely beneficial for pollinators and have the added benefit of being very low maintenance. 

The Green Campus Programme has been in operation in Ireland since 2007. At present 55 Campuses are formally registered on the Programme, with twenty-two awarded the Green Flag, including two hospital sites. See Awarded Sites page for more information.  

For further information on the programme: Green Campus Description 2024-2025