Education and Nature-Based Solutions: enable society to bend the curve for biodiversity

In response to the increasing need for cooperation in learning for environmental sustainability, including biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions (NBS) learning and teaching, eNaBlS will set the basis of networking and collaboration with a view to promoting transdisciplinary dialogue and further embedding and unfolding NBS concepts and approaches within universities and vocational schools, the professional sphere and society at large. eNaBlS envisions the creation of Living Labs to epitomise an integrative approach that includes all ‘voices’ and leaves no one behind. Collecting a variety of input and welcoming a plurality of values and knowledge, the goal is to mainstream biodiversity and NBS in higher education and TVET by developing and upscaling new forms of teaching, learning and capacity-building that are more relational, systems-oriented and applied. This should be achieved through multi-actor collaboration and a whole institution approach (WIA) -universities become their own Living Labs- that spans the curricula, pedagogy and didactics, professional development, institutional practices school/university-community relationships and institutional ethos, vision and leadership. Doing so implies working together across silos, sectors and epistemologies as well as a paradigm shift in education and the development of sustainability competencies. In the end, eNaBlS will contribute to tackling more generally i) urgent sustainability challenges through the necessary transformative change of communities, business models and lifestyles, and, specifically, ii) both biodiversity and climate crises at different decision-making scales, while addressing the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 and the EU climate adaptation strategy.