Education for Sustainable Development
GUPES serves to increase the mainstreaming of environment and sustainability practices and curricula into universities around the world. It is also geared towards encouraging further interaction between UNEP and universities, around the three pillars of education, training and applied research. This is done in accordance to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) of 2004–2015; the Rio+20 Summit outcome document – The Future We Want; the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on Education for Sustainable Development in collaboration with United Nations University (UNU); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and partners.