Rethinking Education for a Just Transition: Women, Sustainability, and Equity

On International Women’s Day, Ana Velazquez and Radhika Iyengar write about a project that seeks to empower women not just as learners—but as leaders in Just Transition movements, ensuring that environmental education reflects real-world experiences of women in climate-vulnerable regions and integrates economic justice principles into sustainability learning.

As the world faces intensifying environmental crises, the need for a Just Transition—one that ensures no community is left behind in the shift toward sustainable economies—has become a global imperative. While the discourse on Just Transition has traditionally focused on labor rights and industrial shifts, emerging scholarship emphasizes its broader social justice dimensions, particularly in education and gender equity (Wang & Lo, 2021).

On International Women’s Day, while we celebrate the achievements of women worldwide, persistent inequalities still hinder their full participation in climate action, economic resilience, and sustainability leadership. Investing in gender-responsive education for sustainability is not just about equity—it is about securing the survival of those communities most affected by the climate crisis.

Within the context of the Columbia SIPA Capstone Project, in collaboration with Mission 4.7, we are researching how education can serve as a catalyst for Just Transition.  This initiative seeks to bridge educational and economic gaps, ensuring that women not only understand climate challenges but also lead solutions at the local, national, and global levels. For this project, we specifically look at the educational needs of marginalized women in a developing country between the age group of 18 -34 years.

The Gendered Burden of Environmental Crises

Environmental disasters disproportionately impact women, deepening economic inequality, health risks, and displacement. The 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy exemplifies this, where inadequate environmental education and accountability led to devastating consequences, particularly for women and children (Iyengar & Bajaj, 2011). Despite its magnitude, the disaster remains largely absent from India’s environmental education curricula, highlighting a broader disconnect between real-world environmental justice issues and formal education frameworks.

In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, for example, women are responsible for 70% of household food production, yet they often lack access to land ownership, financial resources, and technology to implement sustainable practices (UNESCO, 2022). Further, women are at a disadvantage in the job market due to the digital divide. The digitization of economies is expanding, but the skilling of women in STEM and digital literacy are limited. A UNICEF literature review sheds light on the lack of digital access and usage, specifically for women and girls, due to social norms, low levels of infrastructure, and costs (Tyers-Chowdhury & Binder, nd) . The report points out that 50% of the world’s women are offline. In South Asia, women are 23% less likely than men to own a mobile phone. This is a serious disadvantage with over 90% of jobs worldwide having a digital component.

However, our research suggests that education for Just Transition must extend beyond technical training. It should incorporate critical pedagogy, community-driven learning, and intersectional approaches that acknowledge the historical, social, and economic injustices shaping environmental outcomes (Iyengar & Bajaj, 2011). It needs to address the many key competencies including confidence-building, leadership skills, becoming aware of gender biases and stereotypes. It also needs to be contextual and relevant leading to green action in the communities.

Traditional top-down approaches to environmental education often treat marginalized communities as passive recipients of knowledge rather than active agents of change. Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation (1969) provides a useful framework for rethinking participation in sustainability education.

Current curricula often hover at the lower rungs of tokenism, where women are informed about sustainability challenges but lack decision-making power. A truly transformative model would shift toward citizen control, where women shape policy, curricula, and local climate adaptation strategies (Arnstein, 1969).

For example, In Madhya Pradesh, despite widespread environmental degradation, education policies still prioritize Western-centric climate science over local ecological knowledge and lived experiences. Our project aims to co-create lesson plans with women-led organizations to ensure curricula reflect local realities, not external prescriptions. Our fieldwork is based at Mahashakti Seva Kendra (MSK), a non-profit working on providing green skills and livelihoods to women in Bhopal, India. The organization has been promoting a “no more chemicals” message in reaction to the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, where an accident in a pesticide plant released toxic gas across the city. Our research work will include inclusive practices where we will have spaces to have group discussions, dialogues and debates so that everyone is heard. Given the recent past, we plan to include climate justice into our dialogue with a gendered lens.

Education Beyond the Classroom: Human-Centered and Asset-Based Learning

Formal education systems alone cannot drive a Just Transition. Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) emphasize building upon existing community knowledge and resources, rather than imposing external frameworks (IDEO, 2023).

What does this look like in practice?

• Experiential Learning: Women engage in hands-on sustainability projects, such as climate-smart agriculture, water conservation, and waste management initiatives.
• Decentralized knowledge systems: Incorporating indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge into curricula ensures cultural relevance and long-term impact (DePaul ABCD Institute, 2023).
• Microfinance and cooperative training: Women need financial literacy and entrepreneurship training to fully engage in sustainable economies.
• Policy literacy: Training women in climate policy advocacy can help bridge the gap between local environmental challenges and national decision-making.

By integrating HCD and ABCD principles, our lesson plans encourage learning by doing, rather than passive absorption of abstract climate science. We will follow the assets-based approach where the curriculum and its activities will be able to highlight the funds of knowledge (González., Moll., & Amanti, 2005), a concept where individuals come with accumulated life experiences. This approach will help to enrich the curriculum with collective world views structured by broader historically and politically influenced social forces.

The Green Economy and Gendered Labor: Education for Economic Justice

A Just Transition must also address the gendered nature of work and economic exclusion. The transition to a green economy presents new opportunities—but also risks replicating existing inequalities. Research suggests that green jobs remain male-dominated, with women disproportionately concentrated in informal and precarious labor (UNDP, 2023).  In South Asia, 95% of women in the labor force are in informal employment (UN Women, nd). This makes them more vulnerable to economic exploitation. Therefore along with MSK providing technical skills for job advancements, there needs to be awareness about equity and fairness in all aspects especially economic.

Currently, sustainability education rarely integrates economic justice, focusing instead on technical skills without addressing systemic barriers. Our project seeks to embed economic justice in green job training, ensuring women move from the periphery to the center of climate action. Curriculum will include activities of fairness, justice and equity and dialogue spaces where the participants can share their experiences and learn from each other.

Policy and Advocacy Training: Scaling Impact

To ensure systemic change, women must be equipped to influence policy and participate in governance. Our curriculum includes:

• Leadership and Policy Training: Women learn about climate justice frameworks, sustainability laws, and how to engage with policymakers.
• Community-Based Research: Women conduct localized environmental assessments, presenting their findings to local authorities and organizations.

The ultimate goal is to create a global network of sustainability education advocates, ensuring that women lead the charge in climate resilience and economic transformation. There is also a tendency to look for leadership in a hero figure, however, there could be many women at MSK itself who have shown leadership skills dealing with various difficult circumstances at home or in the community. Therefore learning from these lived experiences of leadership will build the skills needed. We hope to create a learning circle where the challenges are discussed as well as the solutions come from the group itself. These skills will help the participants also take on larger policy challenges in economic, social and environmental spheres. All discussions are led by MSK women and are contextualized in the community settings that they come from. Thus all curriculum activities have a ground-truthing practice in-built into them.

Challenging the Sustainability-AI Paradox: Bridging the Gap or Reinforcing Inequality?

The Capstone will explore the use of AI in learning. However, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in sustainability education remains deeply contested. AI has the potential to bridge educational gaps by providing personalized learning experiences, automating administrative tasks, and increasing access to quality educational resources—especially in under-resourced regions (UNESCO, 2023).

AI-driven platforms can translate content into multiple languages, offer adaptive learning tailored to individual student needs, and expand access to climate and sustainability education in areas where qualified teachers and infrastructure are lacking (Harvard Business Review, 2024).

However, critics argue that AI is not a neutral tool but one that often reflects existing inequalities. Many AI models are trained on Western-centric data, risk excluding Indigenous knowledge systems, and can exacerbate the digital divide, as marginalized communities may lack the connectivity and infrastructure to benefit from AI-driven education (Coleman, 2024). Therefore, a window of opportunity for our curriculum will be to craft it based on the ground realities. The activities will be shaped by MSK participants and education facilitators and the use of AI will be determined by a lot of deliberations. The discussions will include phone-based versus computer-based modalities and the existing use of chatbots, if any, and for what purpose. Only then will parts of the curriculum enhance or build upon existing use to fill needs, but also create awareness about the pitfalls of using AI tools. Such as the environmental impact of AI, including its high energy and water consumption, raises ethical concerns, particularly when used in sustainability education (Coleman, 2024).

Conclusion: The Future is Female and Sustainable

On this International Women’s Day, we reaffirm that women must be at the forefront of climate action and sustainability education. A Just Transition requires more than technological innovation—it demands inclusive, intersectional education models that empower women as sustainability leaders.

Education is the most effective tool for addressing these challenges. Not just formal schools, but transformative education ideas are often generated in the non-formal and informal spaces. Studies show that women’s education directly improves environmental decision-making and sustainable development outcomes (Harsha & Shashirekha, 2014). An educated woman is more likely to adopt eco-friendly agricultural practices, advocate for community resilience programs, and influence policy at local and national levels (UNESCO, 2023).

Our Capstone project with Mission 4.7 represents one step in this broader transformation. By designing gender-responsive, community-led sustainability curricula, we aim to empower women not just as learners—but as leaders in Just Transition movements, ensuring environmental education reflects real-world experiences of women in climate-vulnerable regions and integrates economic justice principles into sustainability learning.

Call to Action: Let’s Build Together

We invite educators, policymakers, and sustainability advocates to collaborate with us in scaling gender-inclusive sustainability education. If you are interested in contributing or learning more, reach out—we’d love to hear your ideas!

The Authors:

Radhika Iyengar, Climate School, Columbia University

Ana C. Velazquez, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University