International Academy Transformation for Environment and Sustainability (TES Academy) | Umweltbundesamt

TES Academy Mission

Our work at the TES Academy is based on the following mission:

Why?

Achieving the goals of sustainable development requires profound transformations at the personal, interpersonal, institutional and societal levels.

At the same time, the challenges of sustainable development are global, highly complex and cannot be met by individual actors alone. Rather, we need communication and collaboration structures that transcend national, professional and institutional boundaries.

To shape a sustainable future, we need people across national and disciplinary boundaries who are capable of implementing transformation processes for the environment and sustainability at all levels and thus developing structures with which sustainability problems can be solved.

How?

The TES Academy empowers people through joint learning processes to initiate and implement transformation processes for the environment and sustainability as part of their professional activities. We understand 'empowerment' as an interplay of

• awareness of the need for transformation, its obstacles and possible solutions, and related power and justice issues;
• the willingness to take responsibility for transformation processes oneself and to take the necessary steps to realize them;
• the ability to act, to initiate concrete measures to advance transformation processes in institutions and society.

What?

The TES Academy offers inter- and transdisciplinary learning and cooperation spaces for professional actors, in which they can experience and (co-)shape concrete change processes along current challenges of sustainable development. Within the framework of scientifically based and practically tested, virtual as well as physical formats, the TES Academy facilitates joint learning and long-term cooperation, forms collaborative networks and partnerships, and further develops personal and institutional potentials in order to advance the social transformation for a sustainable future.