The education sector plays a vital role in an economic, social and environmental context since it has the capacity to transform society and educate students to adapt to needs and challenges from different perspectives. A sustainable organisation is becoming one of the most popular and ambitious concepts because environment and organisational performance are closely related and its long-term success depends on the fact how the organisation is able to integrate human capital into the environment (Seivwright & Unsworth, 2016).

International Commission on the Futures of Education (2021) highlights the importance of sustainability for future education, especially in the field of education management, which includes teamwork, collaboration and culture of organisation (International Commission on the Futures of Education, 2021).

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations (UN) recognize quality education as an integral element of sustainable development (United Nations General Assembly, 2015).

The term of the sustainability of organisation is used as a synonym of sustainable development or organisation’s social responsibility – organisation’s sustainability is based on economic, environmental, social (Bagdonienė, Galbuogienė, Paulavičienė, 2009), political and corporate responsibility aspects/ pillars (Morrissey & Heidkamp, 2022).  Combining the five pillars of sustainable development is a complex process that should result in a completely new vision of educational institutions. It raises the necessity for a management structure to encourage and support the sustainability initiatives within the organisation.

Kvelde and Odina (2022) distinguish several development stages for the team to reach the status of a sustainable team in an educational institution starting from a small group of people working together and sharing common interests till the being effective team demonstrating high level teamwork and finally sustainable team working cross-departmentally and centred on adding value to organisations. The data were collected by the content analysis of the education management hierarchy structure reflected on homepages of educational institutions; content analysis of students’ teaching practice assignments on the education management hierarchy structure; interviews with school administration on the state of the art of sustainable team. The current study serves as a continuation of the previous study, in which teachers from the same educational institutions participating, so that as a result of the study, it shows a comparison of the vision of principals and teachers about sustainable team performance in an educational institution.

Latvian National commission of Unites Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO (2019) report states that the sustainable development of educational institutions includes four aspects of sustainability, which provide an answer to the question "what to do?". These aspects are: diversity, self-governance, cooperation and active participation.

Given the foregoing, the aim if this article is to explore the concept of the sustainable team of educational institution in Latvia, as well to summarize issues and opportunities for sustainable team performance development in educational institution.

Research questions:

1. What are the problems in building a sustainable team of an educational institution?
2. What factors influence the development of team activities in educational institutions for sustainable development?
3. Which aspects of leadership and teamwork has positive impact for sustainable development in educational institution?

Research objectives:

1. To analyze the scientific literature on education for sustainable development, teamwork, team performance and leadership for sustaimable development.
2. To study international examples of good practice in sustainable team management in educational institutions.
3. To analyze the perception of sustainable team performance of teachers in educational institution in Latvia.
4. To develop recommendations for the development of the sustainable team performance in educational institution.

Sustainable team supports principals in leading their educational institutions towards sustainability, also, achieves institutional goals and cultivates a culture where collaboration, appreciation, and teamwork are valued.

Due to the need of exploring theoretical notions and defining the concept “sustainable team management”, the research was organized using grounded theory method research design. The authors of grounded theory method, Glaser and Strauss (1967) originally introduced it to facilitate theory development that consisted of obtaining and analysing data. It is considered one of the most generally applied and popular qualitative research methods and is used in areas that have not been widely researched, or to acquire a new insight in previously researched areas (Mārtinsone, Pipere, 2021). The data were collected by the content analyses of case studies regarding the implementation of sustainable team management in educational sector of European Union (n=231), interviews with teachers on the state of the art of sustainable team management, and analyses of survey regarding teamwork in educational institutions in Latvia. The content analysis performed based on the concept of sustainable team management the in educational institution defined by Müller, Lude & Hancock (2020). • Stage 0: Sustainability is not (yet) an issue – only individual teachers deal with SDGs topics in their lessons, no evidence on the institutional and management level; • Stage I: Projects – SDGs topics are tackled in the lessons from time to time and there are initiatives of interdisciplinary cooperation projects (the creation of a school garden, recycling initiatives and others); education management is aware of the sustainable development activities in the educational institution; • Stage II: System – the teaching staff regularly implements SDGs topics in the lessons and is involved in the development of teaching concepts and projects, such as the construction of a solar plant, the redesign of the school grounds, or cooperation with external partners; education management supports the sustainable development activities in the educational institution; • Stage III: Profile – SDGs are integrated comprehensively into teaching and school life and sustainable development has been made a key issue and developed a specific, expressly communicated sustainability school profile that distinguishes the school from other schools, for instance, the certification according to a formal quality label such as, “UNESCO Project School” or the European “Eco-Management and Audit Scheme” (EMAS) or Eco-School. Education management initiates the sustainable development activities in the educational institution.

Present article is a theoretical concept paper based on a literature review, analysis of case studies and interviews with teachers, and the authors’ conceptual work. It seeks to support principals and their teams in leading their educational institutions towards sustainability. Also, the concept of the sustainable team in educational institution is defined for each of the development stages, as well, a number of practical actions and management strategies are suggested and explained in details. According to the data of the study, the institutions insufficiently implement the sustainable development initiatives in the education management process of the educational institution that does not meet state policy and vision, also, there is also a lack of the uniform understanding of sustainability among the members of education management team. The authors admit that the concept of sustainable team management in an educational institution needs to be defined at the national level. Based on a preliminary data of a larger scale and long-term grounded theory research, it can be concluded that the institutions yet minimally implement the sustainable development initiatives in the education management process of the educational institution. Also, the most used initiatives are related to environment pillar. It should be admitted that is necessary to describe the concept of a sustainable team management in an educational institution at the national level, as well as the role of sustainable team in it must be defined. In addition, there is no shared understanding of sustainability among the members of the education management team.

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