Further & Higher Education

What if we knew the root causes of all environmental problems? What if we knew their positive opposites?

Then we could use this knowledge to stop causing these problems in the first place.

RoundView is a toolkit for sustainability thinking and learning.
Offer your students a rigorous, positive way to engage.

A powerful way to activate and build capacity in UNESCO’s core competencies for sustainability leadership.

James Ömer Bridge, Secretary-General - UK National Commission for UNESCO

It should be part of every decision process. We all need to learn to use it as a reflex and become skilled at it.

Workshop feedback - Sustainability Teaching and Learning Community of Practice

Putting the jigsaw together makes clear how the system works, what needs to change and that it can change!

Dr Ingrid Hanson, FHEA, Lecturer in English Literature - University of Manchester

RoundView: a practical toolkit that builds sustainability skills

- from eco-anxiety and fragmentation to hope and connection

The pressure to deliver Green Skills is acute, but lecturers may lack capacity and subject knowledge to successfully embed sustainability into the curriculum.

RoundView’s powerful pedagogy and hands-on learning tools make it easy to integrate sustainability learning in FE and HE, without specialist sustainability knowledge, or extensive course redesign.

There is growing concern about climate and eco-anxiety among young people, impacting educational outcomes and student well-being. By giving a practical, positive and empowering way to think about sustainability, RoundView can contribute to safeguarding.

Building systems thinking skills

Designed as a diagnostic compass, RoundView supports learners to identify what matters and why.

Learning the RoundView builds analytical capacity, and the systems thinking skills needed to navigate towards a positive, sustainable future.

What has been particularly powerful is how the tools provide a quick and accessible entry point into systems thinking. Understanding sustainability challenges systemically requires a shift in mindset – like a light coming on – and the RoundView gives people a framework to do this without being overwhelmed. It has been illuminating how it breaks down complex, root-cause dynamics into simple, visual, and engaging elements. It shows that work on complexity doesn’t have to be complicated.

Building bridges and forging connections

RoundView supports interdisciplinary teaching, helping lecturers and students explore sustainability across subjects, including those not traditionally engaged with sustainability.

Students and staff across STEM, humanities, and professional programmes can use the same conceptual foundation without requiring prior sustainability expertise.

RoundView has been taught in liberal arts, creative writing, education, public health, business, chemistry and engineering, as well as more traditionally sustainability-focused subjects, such as environmental sciences and management. Students consistently report that it reshapes how they understand the relationship between their studies and wider issues.

I knew about most of these environmental problems before attending the RoundView workshop. But one of the things that sets the RoundView apart from other efforts is the clarity it offers. Reading news and articles is like collecting scattered puzzle pieces, while the RoundView is more like the final picture on the box, guiding you to see how everything fits together perfectly.

Employability and skills

Employers look for graduates with sustainability and systems thinking literacy. RoundView is a practical tool for developing Green Skills, with graduates gaining systems literacy applicable to their professional fields.

By supporting peer learning, students gain transferable skills in communication and facilitation.

I joined the RoundView team as a volunteer at Farnworth Library, where we welcomed over 20 children and parents to explore sustainability through hands-on activities…. I realised that even simple messages require deep understanding, because public engagement in sustainability isn't just about communication, it's about translation. Thank you to the incredible RoundView team and the curious, imaginative young minds who reminded me that every climate conversation, no matter how small, plants a seed.

Built on research and coproduction

The RoundView has been developed through sustained academic research and practical application over more than two decades. It is grounded in systems science, with intellectual lineage in ESRC and Sustainable Consumption Institute funded research.

Projects funded by the ESRC, AHRC and Heritage Lottery Fund have enabled testing and co-production with over 140,000 participants in work with the partners including:

UK National Commission for UNESCO
Lancashire Wildlife Trust
Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere
Manchester UNESCO City of Literature
Natural England
Great Manchester Wetlands Partnership
Greater Manchester Libraries Service
National Trust

A recent British Academy Innovation Fellowship explored innovative approaches to sustainability learning in UNESCO-designated sites. This included developing novel approaches to poetry as pedagogy, enriching the RoundView’s cultural learning resource with art and multi-lingual poetry.

Research into spatial imaginaries

What this could look like in practice

Flexible integration into teaching

RoundView can easily be integrated into existing modules and programmes at different depths. For example it can offer:

Ice-breaker activity and framing in welcome week
Cross-curricular learning in open sessions
Single workshop embedded into a module
Framing for a module
Integrated across a full programme, deepening learning and skills over multiple modules

RoundView works across diverse student cohorts, building communication and analytical capacity alongside subject knowledge.

Opportunities for students

RoundView can provide a structured route into civic engagement. Student volunteers can run:

Pop-up events in civic spaces like museums
Stalls at community festivals
Workshops for school visits in libraries

This has provided a valuable skills development opportunity at the University of Manchester, with undergraduate and postgraduate students running workshops in libraries for pupils from year 1 to year 9. For international students this offers valuable local connections and opportunities to practise English.

Research, partnership and institutional leadership

Applications extend well beyond teaching. RoundView can be used as an evaluative and analytical lens in research contexts, providing a sustainability prompt for collaborative inquiry and multi-stakeholder work.

There is scope for further research into its use and impact in different contexts, and cultures.

For institutional leadership, RoundView provides a positive, shared conceptual grounding for staff development programmes, and supports institutions seeking to be leaders in sustainability action, as well as education.

It can help frame and guide a shift towards operational sustainability, bridging research, teaching and sustainability practices on campus.

Bringing sustainability to life