As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning…. This requires a change of mind and heart. It requires a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. We must imaginatively develop and apply the vision of a sustainable way of life locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. Our cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures will find their own distinctive ways to realize the vision. We must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the Earth Charter, for we have much to learn from the ongoing collaborative search for truth and wisdom (The Earth Charter, The Way Forward).

Such advancement of high-minded values, such changes of mind and heart, and such senses of interdependence and responsibility across culture can only be achieved through education. Realising culturally rooted visions of sustainability and searching for cross-cultural collaboration is, inherently, a process of education. The Earth Charter Initiative has said from the beginning that the Earth Charter is an educational resource of significant value.

The art and science of teaching about, from, with, and for the Earth Charter offers a promising pedagogy for exploring such shared values and global ethics. Many of the problems we face are ethical problems. Therefore, the solutions must be solutions to which ethics point.