Several Danish schools are currently developing green or sustainable school profiles on their own initiative, despite limited policy support. Adopting a whole-school perspective to investigate these schools’ developmental processes can contribute to a systemic understanding of the interconnectedness within their efforts. Over the years, the whole-school approach has been highlighted as a key framework for Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) (e.g.Henderson & Tilbury, 2004; UNESCO, 2017), primarily because a cohesive understanding and effort are seen as essential for enabling schools to equip students not only with knowledge about sustainability crises but also with hands-on experience in driving green transitions. There is potential in developing this through schools’ own green transitions toward sustainable operations, collaboration with local communities, and the development of pedagogical approaches that emphasize interdisciplinarity, participation, and project-oriented learning, often beyond the confines of the classroom.

At the same time, research consistently emphasizes the challenges of implementing a comprehensive or “effective” whole-school model, as fully realized examples remain rare and difficult to identify in practice (Gericke, 2022; Hargreaves, 2008; Henderson & Tilbury, 2004; Holst, 2022; Mathie & Wals, 2022; Mogren, 2019; Verhelst et al., 2020).

Therefore, this paper addresses two interrelated research questions:

1. What insights does a whole-school perspective offer for understanding schools’ efforts to develop a green and sustainable profile?
2. How can empirical observations of schools’ development work contribute to refining and advancing the whole-school approach itself?

The whole-school approach provides a lens for examining the interplay between different aspects of school practices and participants’ understandings of their own actions. Therefore, this study empirically explores the connections between participants' why, how, and where to. Specifically, it investigates why participants justify their engagement in and development of ESE; how they articulate key practices that shape this development, both from a pedagogical-didactic perspective and a school development perspective; and where to, meaning the schools’ visions for the kind of institution they aspire to become, along with the future imaginaries and utopian perspectives that guide this process. The extensive study of schools’ developmental efforts highlights the complexity of school practices. The whole-school approach represents an attempt to take a systemic and holistic view of this complexity.

Furthermore, the whole school perspective offers an opportunity to develop schools as democratic communities. At the schools studied, leaders and teachers were central to development processes, while other professional groups and students often felt less engaged in meaningful development. The whole-school approach’s emphasis on vision-building and shared learning processes could serve as a pathway to greater democratic participation for all stakeholders and a critical perspective for sustainability education.

This paper draws on empirical findings from a recently completed Ph.D. project. Methodologically, it employs a multiple case study approach (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Yin, 2009) conducted at three Danish primary and lower secondary schools that have been working on developing green or sustainable profiles for at least 4–5 years. Over the course of a year, the study included interviews with various stakeholders (principals, teachers, educational staff, janitors, students, parents, school boards, and municipal administrators), observations of ESE-related activities (including indoor and outdoor teaching and meetings focused on ESE practices and structures), and observations of events where schools and local communities interacted. Additionally, future workshops were facilitated with both adults and students at the three schools, to develop and explore the participants' transformative and utopian visions of school. The broad empirical scope reflects an ambition to view school practices through a systemic, whole-school lens. The theoretical framework is rooted in practice theory (Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 2012), with particular emphasis on Kemmis and colleagues’ concept of practice architectures (Kemmis, 2022; Kemmis et al., 2014). This framework enables analytical connections between situated practices and their links to the school’s specific context at the meso level and broader societal structures at the macro level. Thus, the analyses of the empirical material employ practice architectures as an overarching framework, while thematic analysis (Clarke et al., 2015) is used for sub-analyses that identify key themes within the data.

The empirical study explores that the schools demonstrate a strong aspiration toward a transformative vision of ESE. They recognize connections between knowledge about sustainability challenges, the development of didactics—such as project-based and outdoor education—critical thinking, and democratic participation. Adult participants underscore the importance of well-being and relational work with students as integral to ESE, noting that a sense of belonging and trust in communal spaces fosters a belief in agency. They also highlight that working with ESE provides a greater sense of purpose in their professional roles. Interestingly, their visions for an ideal school closely align with the whole-school ideal. However, significant tensions arise between aspirations and outcomes. These tensions stem partly from challenges in leadership practices, particularly in striking a balance between traditional top-down and bottom-up processes. On one hand, norm supporting structures (Wickenberg, 2004), such as routines and capacity-building, are needed; on the other hand, significant flexibility is essential. Another key barrier lies in the tension between participants’ hopes for change and entrenched cultural assumptions about schooling and learning, which pose a significant challenge to the transformative potential. The whole-school approach’s focus on shared democratic learning processes could be a strength in ESE. Addressing complex, wicked, and dilemma-filled problems requires approaches beyond individual behavior changes and necessitates perspectives that not only address prohibitions but also imagine what we aspire to and how we can learn together. In this sense, the whole-school approach should not be understood as an implementable, goal-oriented best-practice policy but rather as a reflective, transformative, and utopian ideal. Transformative, because it aims to create change. Reflective, because it fosters dialogue, inquiry, and collective learning. Utopian, because it calls for imagining new ways of creating meaningful lives. Ideal, because it represents an aspirational goal rather than a prescriptive solution.

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