Co-Designs is a globally recognised framework which supports embedding Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in curriculum design and delivery, and in September 2025, they launched an ESD GenAI Coach to further help this work. At the University of Worcester, we have used the Co-Designs framework in our ESD teaching excellence workshops, supporting staff to embed sustainability in their modules and courses, and this year have also been introducing the new ESD GenAI Coach.
The ESD GenAI Coach is open source and freely available to all, and at Worcester, we are exploring its use and how it can be best employed to assist staff in further engaging with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their teaching. The Coach is a human-hybrid model that uses the ROCKS method to craft prompts to guide the AI and help staff integrate the SDGs into their sessions, modules or overall course curriculum. The human-hybrid approach is important as the tool is best used to enhance, not replace, ESD guidance and supported training.
Feedback from staff who have used the tool confirms that it can be effective in both reaffirming current thinking and approaches or alternatively providing a useful starting point for staff new to ESD, especially when the content does not seemingly directly link to sustainability, enabling them to build confidence.
Broadly, reaction to the tool so far has been encouraging, with individuals finding it a useful guide for planning their curriculum and developing innovative sessions, especially in topics that may not be their speciality. However, some staff are hesitant to apply this tool due to concerns about GenAI use within teaching and learning. Through continued training and learning about its development we hope to address some of these worries and support more staff to engage.
Staff interested in learning more about using the ESD GenAI Coach can contact Heather Barrett, the Academic Lead for Sustainability, at h.barrett@worc.ac.uk.
