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AISL Academy

Equipping the Transition Generation – A Whole School Approach to Sustainability Education


We are now in the midst of a planetary environmental emergency, the solution to which requires us to bring about the greatest economic and social transition ever undertaken by humans – an urgent transition to a past-carbon world, and possibly also a post-growth world. In light of calls from students around the world for us to do more and do it more urgently to address these crises, what can schools do to play their part? How can they respond in a substantive way?

About This Event

We are now in the midst of a planetary environmental emergency, the solution to which requires us to bring about the greatest economic and social transition ever undertaken by humans – an urgent transition to a past-carbon world, and possibly also a post-growth world. Our children will live with the impact and consequences of this transition more than we will.  As educators we have a duty to ensure they are well prepared - both to manage the transition and co-create the sustainable future.

But our current approach to addressing the challenge of climate change and the other environmental emergencies like biodiversity loss, and chemical pollution, relies almost entirely on technology and policies.  Education is rarely mentioned. Why is this? What is education’s contribution to a sustainable future for the planet and our children and their children? 

In light of calls from students around the world for us to do more and do it more urgently to address these crises, what can schools do to play their part?  How can they respond in a substantive way?

This resource will address these questions and present a year-long project-based learning opportunity for students to transform the organisation’s environmental footprint (in all aspects of school life), and learn critical relevant and interdisciplinary skills in the process.

About The Speakers

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Anthony Dixon

Chief Executive Officer, Metanoia

 Anthony Dixon is the founder and CEO of Metanoia, a sustainability consulting business partnering with schools to reduce their environmental footprint. He is a passionate advocate of the important contribution schools can make to our sustainable future. Following a 15-year career in banking, Anthony embarked on a second career in renewable energy engineering and sustainability which has spanned multiple industries including low-carbon housing in the UK, biodiesel manufacturing in Hong Kong, developing solar projects in Asia, and serving on the boards of a solar company in Vietnam and India, an NYSE-listed hydropower company in China and a resources company in Bougainville, PNG.

In the last several years his focus turned to sustainability in schools. He founded Metanoia to work with schools to measure their environmental footprint through a student-centred sustainability audit and then develop and implement plans to reduce it including long-term plans like becoming zero carbon or zero waste.

Recognizing the benefit of schools working together to address systemic sustainability issues, he also founded The Alliance for Sustainable Schools, a non-profit network that leverages the collective influence of its members to improve the sustainability of school buildings, school buses, school food, and school uniforms.

Anthony holds an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Western Australia, a master's in renewable energy engineering from Imperial College, London and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Anthony has four children, three of whom currently attend schools in Hong Kong including one at Harrow.

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Edward Lawless

Executive Director, Learning & Innovation, The Qatar Foundation

Edward’s career as an educator has spanned four decades, four continents and multiple curricula in state and independent schools around the world. In his current role as AISL Academy’s Director of Professional Learning, Edward builds partnerships with leading global education institutions and specialists to provide AISL educators with high-quality opportunities to learn, share and grow as professionals under online, face to face and blended conditions. He has served as Head of Professional Development for the International Baccalaureate’s Asia Pacific Region and was the founding Principal for Pamoja Education, an Oxford-based EdTech organisation responsible for developing and delivering IB-approved online Diploma Programme courses to students around the world. Prior to joining AISL, Edward founded The Centre for Innovation (CFI), a Tokyo-based not-for-profit organisation dedicated to providing a gateway to global education innovation in Japan and served as a member of the Japanese Ministry’s Consortium for the Promotion of IB Education in Japan.

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