In the last decades a series of global initiatives aiming at strengthening the outreach of ESD have been introduced: The UN Decade for ESD (2005-2015) and its successor the Global Action Programme ESD (post 2015) being the most prominent ones. These UN initiatives are accompanied by official “Implementation Schemes” aiming to provide guidance on developing national and subnational implementation strategies. This presentation aims to present and critically discuss the logic of current global policy implementation schemes on ESD. While there have been studies and subsequent discussion on the understanding of education in these UN documents (Jickling 1992; Sauvé et al. 2007; Jickling and Wals 2012; Bormann 2013), the same scrutiny has yet not been applied to the proposed way of implementing ESD. The analysis of the implementation documents is based on the assumption that these documents (as programmes) contain proposals for maintaining, changing and developing social structures leading to ESD becoming institutionalised in an education system. For the document analysis Uwe Schimank’s (2006) differentiation between three types of social structures (Constellation, Expectations and Meanings) are operationalised into analysis guiding questions. Starting with the findings from the investigation of the UN Decade ESD Implementations Scheme document (UNESCO 2005), the same framework is applied to the Roadmap for Implementing the Global Action Programme on GAP on ESD (UNESCO 2014). Further, comparable relevant documents of the SDGs (particular on SDG 4) are looked at. It is aimed to provide for each of the documents a summary as well as an overview allowing comparison. The discussion addresses questions regarding the UNs maintained or changed proposed logic of implementation and the assumed mechanism of creating acceptance. A further discussion point focuses on the role of evaluation and monitoring.

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