Climate Education and School Sustainability: Institutional Diagnosis in Brazilian Public Schools

Daniel de Moura Oliveira; Marcos Canto Machado

DOI: 10.22167/2675-6528-202602801

Article derived from a Final Course Work (TCC), with content based on the student’s original work and adapted to the editorial format of the E&S Magazine with the support of the ResumeAI tool, an artificial intelligence solution developed by the Pecege Institute for textual synthesis and organization.

Abstract

School sustainability is a central challenge for contemporary educational management, requiring articulation between public policies, pedagogical practices, and institutional organization. This research evaluated the degree of institutionalization of sustainability in Brazilian public schools through the development and application of the School Sustainability Indicators Model (MISE). The MISE was built from the systematization of national and international normative references, institutional frameworks, and scientific literature, being structured into three dimensions (School Management and Governance; Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices; Infrastructure and Green Culture), each composed of five indicators evaluated on an institutional maturity scale from 0 to 3. The model was applied to the documentary analysis of the Political-Pedagogical Projects of two public Basic Education schools, located in the Center-West and South regions of Brazil. The results showed that both schools achieved intermediate levels of institutionalization, but through distinct trajectories: the school in the Center-West advanced through pedagogical identity and territoriality, while the school in the South consolidated through formal governance and organizational continuity. Climate adaptation emerged as the least institutionalized dimension in both contexts, revealing a transversal gap between legal frameworks and school practices. The MISE demonstrated the capacity to discriminate not only levels but also institutional sustainability profiles, offering a methodological basis for institutional diagnosis processes in public education networks and for strategic planning of contextualized actions.

Keywords: Climate Adaptation; Environmental Education; Sustainable School Management; Institutional Indicators; Educational Public Policies.

1. Introduction

Climate and environmental impacts represent a central challenge for educational systems, which need to promote learning that integrates science, ethics, and management. The school is recognized as a strategic space for citizen formation and collective responsibility. Reports from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] and the Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education [MECCE] (2024) indicate that the transition to sustainable societies requires the development of learning that articulates cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioral dimensions, aiming to consolidate a school culture focused on climate action. In this context, Droubi et al. (2023) argue that education for a just transition should drive curricular and institutional transformations oriented by social justice and intergenerational responsibility, in line with Agenda 2030 and the Action Plan for Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 2017).

International frameworks guide the systemic incorporation of sustainability into educational institutions. The Whole-School Approach, proposed by Sterling (2010) and elaborated by Wals (2019), understands the school as a learning ecosystem where pedagogical, administrative, and community dimensions are interdependent. Coherence between teaching, learning, and institutional organization constitutes a central principle of educational sustainability. Frameworks such as the Education for Sustainable Development Goals (UNESCO, 2017), the Framework for Learning for Sustainability (OECD, 2019), and the Eco-Schools program (FEE, 2022) reinforce the importance of diagnostic instruments and integrated indicators that articulate management, curriculum, and community. In the Brazilian context, initiatives such as the Ceará Sustainable School Seal (SEDUC; SEMA, 2024) and the MonitoraEA system (ANPPEA; INPE, 2023) seek to address these weaknesses by proposing metrics for monitoring sustainable school practices.

In Brazil, the National Policy on Environmental Education (Brasil, 1999; 2002; 2024) guides the integration of the socio-environmental dimension into educational systems, in conjunction with the National Plan on Climate Change (MMA, 2008), the National Program on Environmental Education (MMA, 2023), and the National Curriculum Guidelines for Environmental Education (MEC, 2012). The National Common Curricular Base (MEC, 2018) reinforces this arrangement by inscribing socio-environmental awareness among the general competencies of Basic Education and by incorporating environmental education into contemporary cross-cutting themes, whose approach should occur in an integrated manner with curricular components, assigning to school units the responsibility of translating them into their curricula and political-pedagogical projects (Hamuyela et al., 2024).

However, Raymundo et al. (2019) point to the persistence of a mismatch between legal frameworks and their effectiveness, evidenced by gaps between policies, teacher training, and management. Recent studies (Luciano et al., 2024; Rosa and Kauchakje, 2024) reinforce the need for interdisciplinary approaches and evaluative mechanisms that integrate curriculum, management, and community, promoting a systemic view of school sustainability. In this direction, Araripe and Zeidler (2024) highlight that climate education must articulate criticality and emancipation, considering local sociocultural realities. National and international literature indicates that school sustainability goes beyond infrastructure, involving pedagogical practices, management, and community (Sauvé, 2005; Tozoni-Reis and Campos, 2014; Freire, 1996; Silva and Ody, 2023). Thus, a methodological gap persists: although relevant references exist, there is a lack of integrating models capable of assessing the degree of school sustainability, limiting diagnostics and evidence-based planning (Ganiko-Dutra and Caldeira, 2024).

The School Sustainability Indicators Model [MISE] is the analytical instrument developed in this research to operationalize this evaluation. It is a matrix built from the systematization of national and international normative references, institutional frameworks, and scientific literature, organized into three dimensions: School Management and Governance, Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices, and Infrastructure and Green Culture. Each dimension is composed of five indicators, totaling fifteen, evaluated on an institutional maturity scale from zero to three. The model does not prescribe practices, but verifies the extent to which sustainability is institutionalized in the documents that structure the life of the school unit. Given this context, this research aimed to evaluate, through the development and application of a School Sustainability Indicators Model [MISE], the degree of institutionalization of sustainability in Brazilian public schools, considering the dimensions of management, curriculum, and infrastructure.

2. Material and Methods

This research was characterized as qualitative, applied, and exploratory, with a documentary and comparative approach. It was based on the analysis of institutional documents and public sources, as recommended by Gil (2017), who highlights the adequacy of documentary study for reinterpreting existing data and identifying patterns of relationships between phenomena. This approach allowed for an understanding of the institutional manifestation of school sustainability in the dimensions of management and governance, curriculum and pedagogical practices, and infrastructure and green culture.

The methodological strategy adopted combined comparative documentary analysis (Cellard, 2012) with the study of multiple documentary case studies (Yin, 2004; Stake, 2017). This combination aimed to investigate school sustainability governance based on formal and verifiable records, ensuring traceability, legitimacy, and standardization. The design enabled the identification of patterns, gaps, and best practices in different regional contexts.

Two Brazilian public Basic Education schools, located in the Center-West and South regions of the country, were examined. Each school was considered an independent unit of analysis, and the set formed a system of comparable cases. The selection of schools was based on two cumulative criteria: (a) availability of verifiable public documentation, including Political-Pedagogical Projects, institutional reports, and action plans; and (b) public nature, proven by official records from the education networks.

The choice of two units of analysis was not representative, but analytical, aligned with the logic of qualitative deepening and the strategy of theoretical replication (Yin, 2004). Interpretive density was prioritized over breadth, considering the level of detail required by the analysis instrument. This approach allowed for an understanding of different modes of institutionalization of sustainability in school management, respecting the country’s territorial, administrative, and socio-environmental diversity.

The School Sustainability Indicators Model [MISE] constituted the central analytical instrument of this research, designed to operationalize the assessment of the degree of institutionalization of sustainability. Its construction occurred from the systematization of national and international normative references, institutional frameworks, and scientific literature, as described in the introduction.

The development of MISE followed three stages. Firstly, a theoretical systematization was carried out, with a survey of the recurring dimensions and indicators in the references of UNESCO, OECD, FEE, MMA, MEC, ANPPEA, and SEDUC/SEMA. Then, the preliminary model was structured, organizing the dimensions and indicators into an analysis matrix.

The MISE analysis matrix was composed of three central dimensions: School Management and Governance; Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices; and Infrastructure and Green Culture. Each dimension was structured with five main indicators and complementary questions, totaling fifteen indicators. Finally, an institutional maturity scale from 0 to 3 was defined, based on the references from UNESCO (2021), OECD (2019), and MMA (2023).

The institutional maturity scale was defined in four levels: Level 0 (Absent), Level 1 (Initial/Fragmented), Level 2 (Consolidating/Partially integrated), and Level 3 (Consolidated/Institutionalized). This gradation allowed us to capture different stages of institutional development, distinguishing the total absence of evidence, the punctual and fragmented presence, partial consolidation, and the full and formalized institutionalization of sustainability.

The MISE construction process was based on an inductive-analytical logic, anchored in documentary analysis and content analysis procedures (Bardin, 2016). This approach enabled the identification of analytical categories from the recurrence of themes, the observation of gaps, and the tensions between normative discourse, scientific production, and operational instruments present in the examined documents.

The data were collected exclusively from public, official, and verifiable sources, distributed into four main groups. The first group included Political-Pedagogical Projects, action plans, and institutional reports from public schools, obtained through direct request or via the Law on Access to Information (Brazil, 2011).

The second group of sources comprised documents from institutional programs and certifications, such as the Ceará State Sustainable School Seal Program (SEDUC; SEMA, 2024) and the Eco-Schools program (FEE, 2022). The third group covered scientific articles and technical reports published between 2014 and 2024, which describe school sustainability and climate education experiences from a national and international perspective.

The fourth group of sources consisted of public policies and regulatory frameworks, such as the National Policy on Environmental Education (Brazil, 1999; 2002; 2024), the MonitoraEA system (ANPPEA; INPE, 2023), and the Political Pedagogical Project of the Brazilian Coastal and Marine Zone (ANPPEA et al., 2023). This process ensured that all analyzed evidence was authentic, traceable, and comparable.

With the structured MISE, the documents from the selected schools were analyzed according to the defined indicators and dimensions. The documents were evaluated for the presence, coherence, and frequency of evidence per indicator, with scores from 0 to 3. The results were organized into regional comparative matrices.

The data treatment followed thematic content analysis (Bardin, 2016), articulated with the study of multiple documentary cases (Yin, 2004; Stake, 2017). The initial coding was performed through a floating and exploratory reading of the documents, identifying expressions, excerpts, and categories related to environmental and climate education, guided by questions derived from the literature and national frameworks, associated with each MISE indicator.

The use of Artificial Intelligence was exclusively instrumental, restricted to textual organization and systematization of evidence, without interference in analytical interpretation, categorization, or scoring. These steps remained under the researcher’s full responsibility. For each indicator, an interpretive synthesis was produced, based exclusively on the presented documentary content, followed by analytical evaluation with scoring on the institutional maturity scale.

The analysis was operationalized through a structured document in Word format, used as an instrument for recording, systematizing, and tracing analytical evidence and evaluations. This document was structured by MISE dimensions, containing school identification and the analyzed document, transcription of evidential excerpts, interpretive synthesis guided by analytical questions, assigned score, technical justification, and complementary observations.

The reliability of the analysis was guaranteed by three main mechanisms: (1) objective scoring criteria of the MISE, with explicit operational descriptors for each level of the maturity scale (0 to 3); (2) cross-checking and consistency between documentary evidence, confronting different sections of the Political-Pedagogical Projects and complementary documents; and (3) systematic recording of the sources and documents analyzed, with publication date, institutional origin, and method of obtaining them.

This methodological structure ensured transparency, traceability, and replicability, consolidating MISE as a conceptual diagnostic model applicable to strategic planning and sustainable management of public schools. The choice of exclusively documentary analysis, although it constitutes a limitation regarding the capture of informal practices or subjective perceptions of school actors, conferred institutional legitimacy and analytical standardization to the study.

3. Results and Discussion

In line with the general objective of the research, this section presents the results of the empirical application of the School Sustainability Indicators Model (MISE) to two selected case studies, with the purpose of analyzing the degree of institutionalization of sustainability in Brazilian public schools. The analysis focused on the Political-Pedagogical Projects of two public basic education schools, located in the Center-West and South regions of the country, selected based on criteria of public documentary availability and affiliation with state or district education networks. The selection of cases was analytical-comparative, prioritizing the existence of updated Political-Pedagogical Projects, the explicit presence of references to sustainability or environmental education, and affiliation with public education networks, ensuring normative comparability in light of Brazilian educational legislation (Brazil, 1999; Ministry of Education [MEC], 2012). The results are presented comparatively, followed by an analytical discussion linked to the theoretical and normative frameworks that grounded the research. The findings refer specifically to the two school units analyzed and should be read as particular findings of these cases, without any claim of statistical representativeness or generalization to the Brazilian public network. Their contribution lies in demonstrating the analytical capacity of MISE and in identifying patterns that can guide future investigations in larger samples.

Dimension 1: School Management and Governance

The comparative analysis of Dimension 1, composed of Indicators 1.1 (Institutional insertion of sustainability in the PPP), 1.2 (Planning and continuity of actions), 1.3 (Participatory governance and responsibilities), 1.4 (Articulation with public policies and territory), and 1.5 (Monitoring, self-assessment, and institutional learning), showed that the institutionalization of sustainability assumed distinct configurations in the two schools analyzed, even though both presented intermediate levels of consolidation according to the MISE Scale. These results confirmed that school sustainability was not structured in a linear or homogeneous manner, but rather from different combinations of pedagogical transversality, organizational specialization, and territorial articulation. The findings demonstrated that both schools partially internalized the principles of the National Environmental Education Program (MMA, 2023), with distinct advances.

In the school located in the Midwest region, Indicators 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.5 were classified at Level 2. Strong discursive and pedagogical integration of sustainability into the institutional identity of the Political-Pedagogical Project was observed, with explicit presence in the mission and formative objectives. However, this centrality did not translate into its own organizational structure or specific evaluation mechanisms. The planning of socio-environmental actions was continuous, but without formalization of a unified institutional agenda or explicit monitoring cycles. Democratic governance was institutionalized, yet sustainability remained absorbed by general governance, without thematic specialization. Organizational monitoring and learning were consistent, but environmental and climate sustainability was not a specific focus of this follow-up. Indicator 1.4 represented the greatest point of progress, reaching Level 3, due to robust articulation with educational and social public policies, the contextualized pedagogical translation of these agendas in the PPP, and the school’s active insertion into territorial public networks.

In the school located in the Southern region, Indicators 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, and 1.5 were equally classified at Level 2, although supported by distinct institutional foundations. Sustainability appeared as a normative principle and a formal institutional commitment, anchored in state legal requirements and materialized in the Sustainable CEP Project, but its presence remained concentrated in specific projects and sections of the PPP, without explicit transversal integration into the document’s overall pedagogical identity. Planning was structured, continuous, and long-term, with strong articulation to infrastructure and public asset management, but without explicit formal planning cycles, progressive goals, or systematic monitoring indicators. Despite solid alignment with educational and institutional public policies, sustainability remained predominantly self-centered within the school environment, with limited environmental and climatic territorialization. The school demonstrated a robust institutional culture of monitoring, self-assessment, and continuous learning, expressed by the recurrent use of educational data and the history of PPP revisions, but these mechanisms were not specifically operationalized to evaluate environmental or climatic results. Indicator 1.3 constituted the point of greatest institutional consolidation, reaching Level 3, due to the existence of a permanent committee dedicated to sustainability, the explicit definition of responsibilities, organizational continuity across different administrations, and the formal insertion of the socio-environmental agenda into the school’s decision-making processes.

These results confirmed the structural mismatch between the robustness of the regulatory frameworks and their effective translation into verifiable institutional capacities at the school level, as identified by Raymundo et al. (2019). Both schools demonstrated knowledge and formal adherence to the legal frameworks, especially the National Policy on Environmental Education (Brazil, 1999) and the National Curriculum Guidelines for Environmental Education (MEC, 2012), but the operationalization of these frameworks in strategic planning, thematic governance, and systematic monitoring proved to be partial. This finding empirically demonstrated that the mismatch operates not only at the policy level but is also reproduced internally within the institutional organization of the schools, constituting a pattern observed in both cases analyzed.

The comparative analysis revealed that the two schools achieved similar levels of global institutionalization in Dimension 1, but through divergent institutional trajectories. While the Midwest school based its sustainability on pedagogical identity, discursive transversality, and territorial articulation, the Southern school achieved better performance in indicators related to formal governance, institutional accountability, and organizational continuity. This contrast directly dialogued with the Whole-School Approach proposed by Sterling (2010) and deepened by Wals (2019), which conceives of the school as a learning ecosystem where pedagogical, administrative, and community dimensions are interdependent. The results indicated, however, that even schools with consistent practices tended to develop partial dimensions of this ecosystem, advancing in governance or pedagogical identity, but rarely in both in an articulated manner. This finding suggested that the systemic coherence advocated by the Whole-School Approach remains a desirable horizon, but still distant from the institutional reality observed in the analyzed cases.

Regarding the governance model, the punctual advance to Level 3 of the Southern school in Indicator 1.3 approached the models described in international frameworks, such as Eco-Schools (Foundation for Environmental Education [FEE], 2022) and the references from UNESCO (2017) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] (2019), which highlight the centrality of institutional accountability for the consolidation of school sustainability. However, this advance in formal governance did not automatically translate into curricular integration or a lived environmental culture, which partially contradicted the implicit premise in these frameworks that structural formalization generates institutional integration by itself. The Midwestern school, in turn, demonstrated that territorial articulation and pedagogical identity can sustain equivalent advances without the same formal mechanisms, which reinforced the thesis of Silva and Ody (2023) that the institutionalization of sustainability fundamentally depends on the performance of managers and a favorable institutional culture, and not just on formalized organizational structures.

It should be highlighted that the National Environmental Education Program (MMA, 2023), by advocating for transversality and intersectoral articulation as principles of environmental education, guides educational systems to overcome fragmented approaches and integrate the socio-environmental dimension into institutional planning and management. The results of Dimension 1 demonstrated that both schools partially internalized these principles, with distinct advances: the school in the Center-West operationalized transversality through pedagogical identity and territorial articulation, while the school in the South materialized intersectoral articulation through formal governance and accountability structures. Neither school, however, achieved full integration between these two axes, which indicated that the central challenge of governance for school sustainability lies not in the absence of guidelines, but in the difficulty of articulating them simultaneously in daily management. This finding also resonated with the National Plan on Climate Change (Ministry of the Environment [MMA], 2008), which already signaled the need to incorporate the climate dimension into educational systems, but whose institutional translation remained incipient almost two decades after its publication. For school management, these findings implied that strategies for strengthening institutional sustainability must be differentiated according to the profile of each school, reinforcing the need for contextualized institutional diagnoses as a basis for the strategic planning of educational networks.

Dimension 2: Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices

The comparative analysis of Dimension 2, composed of Indicators 2.1 (Curricular integration of sustainability), 2.2 (Environmental, climatic, and territorialized approach), 2.3 (Pedagogical methodologies and integrated projects), 2.4 (Student protagonism and participation), and 2.5 (Teacher training and pedagogical development), showed that the translation of sustainability into the pedagogical plan occurred unevenly in the two schools analyzed, even though both were predominantly at intermediate levels of institutionalization. The results indicated that the curricular consolidation of sustainability did not automatically arise from management arrangements, but depended on the articulation between pedagogical intentionality, didactic methodologies, student participation, and teacher training policies.

In the Center-West school, greater consistency was observed in the pedagogical incorporation of sustainability, especially in indicators associated with concrete educational practices and student protagonism. Indicators 2.3 and 2.4 were classified at Level 3, reflecting the existence of recurring and institutionalized pedagogical methodologies, such as school gardens, experimental kitchens, and space care actions, described operationally and articulated to pedagogical planning, evidencing sustainability as a concrete educational experience. Indicator 2.4 pointed to the recognition of students as active subjects of the educational process, with institutionalized participation in projects and formal instances. Indicators 2.1, 2.2, and 2.5 remained at Level 2: sustainability appeared transversally to the learning objectives, but without explicit curricular progressions or specific competencies; the pedagogical approach showed coherence with environmental education principles, but without critical deepening of the climatic dimension as a social and territorial issue; and teacher training, although institutionalized as a management responsibility, did not address environmental or climate education as a training axis.

At the Southern school, Dimension 2 presented a more homogeneous configuration, with all indicators classified at Level 2. Sustainability was recognized as an institutional principle, anchored in the CEP Sustentável Project and in state-level guidelines, but remained concentrated in specific projects and sections of the PPP, without explicit curricular development by areas or competencies. The environmental approach was predominantly normative and ethical, with an emphasis on conservation and responsibility, but without systematic problematization of the social, territorial, and climatic dimensions. Environmental actions were continuous and institutionalized, integrated into infrastructure and daily management, but not explicitly stated as structured pedagogical methodologies or integrating projects linked to the formal curriculum. Student leadership, although solid within democratic management, with student councils and boards, was dissociated from the environmental and climate agenda. Teacher training presented a robust institutional structure, but remained generalist, without specific training pathways in environmental or climate education, nor direct links to the territory or the school’s socio-environmental projects.

The results of Dimension 2 confirmed the central thesis of Sauvé (2005), who advocates for environmental education as a plural and political field, irreducible to prescribed protocols, whose effectiveness depends on the coherence between institutional positioning, pedagogical practice, and the engagement of educational subjects. The school in the Center-West exemplified this coherence by integrating concrete experiences into daily pedagogy, while the school in the South demonstrated that normative and organizational robustness, by itself, did not ensure pedagogical depth. This contrast also dialogued with the perspective of Tozoni-Reis and Campos (2014), who ground critical and transformative environmental education as a practice that articulates integral formation, participation, and political engagement, dimensions that manifested more consistently in the school in the Center-West through experiential practices and territoriality.

This finding critically engaged with the warning from Araripe and Zeidler (2024), who argue that climate education in Brazil must articulate criticality and emancipation, avoiding the uncritical reproduction of foreign models and valuing local socio-cultural realities. The school in the Center-West, by grounding its pedagogical practices in territoriality and community experience, approached this emancipatory perspective, even without explicitly defining climate education as a formal focus. The school in the South, on the other hand, by anchoring its sustainability predominantly in normative and institutional frameworks, revealed an approach closer to what the authors call foreign methodological adaptation, with a solid formal structure but less rooted in lived experiences and territories. The predominance of isolated practices over institutionalized curricular processes also confirmed the diagnosis by Luciano et al. (2024), who identified a mismatch between normative guidelines and the effective integration of environmental education in teaching and learning processes.

The most significant finding in Dimension 2 referred to teacher training (Indicator 2.5), which presented itself as a transversal bottleneck: in both schools, continuing education programs did not include environmental or climate education as a training axis, nor did they establish a direct link with existing socio-environmental projects. This result expanded on what Silva and Ody (2023) found regarding continuing education as an axis of institutionalization, demonstrating that the training fragility was not restricted to the absence of offerings, but to the disconnection between training, curriculum, and institutional projects. This compromised triangulation between management, training, and pedagogical practice constituted, possibly, the main limiting factor for the curricular consolidation of sustainability. Freire’s (1996) perspective on autonomy as the foundation of educational practice offered an additional interpretive key: sustainability, when incorporated merely as an institutional guideline or normative content, without teacher pedagogical autonomy and without critical engagement of subjects, tended to remain at the declarative level. For public policies, these findings indicated that curricular integration requires not only normative frameworks but systematic investment in specific teacher training, articulated to school contexts and institutional planning instruments, in line with what the National Environmental Education Program (Ministry of Environment and Climate Change [MMA], 2023) advocates as a strategic guideline.

Dimension 3: Green Infrastructure and Culture

The comparative analysis of Dimension 3, composed of Indicators 3.1 (Sustainable management of natural resources), 3.2 (Physical space as an educational environment), 3.3 (Institutional sustainability practices in daily school life), 3.4 (Organizational culture and environmental values), and 3.5 (Climate adaptation, resilience, and school safety), showed that the incorporation of sustainability into the lived school environment occurred heterogeneously and asymmetrically in the two institutions analyzed. In both cases, intermediate or low levels of institutionalization predominated, confirming that sustainability, when observed in daily institutional life, did not consolidate linearly but resulted from specific combinations of recurring practices, organizational values, pedagogical use of space, and capacity to cope with contemporary socio-environmental risks. The limitations observed in Dimension 2, especially the difficulty of transforming management arrangements into systematic formative intentionality, made the analysis of Dimension 3 necessary, in which it was investigated to what extent sustainability translated, or not, into daily institutional practices, organizational culture, and capacity to respond to contemporary climate challenges. This articulation between dimensions constituted a central aspect of the MISE’s analytical logic, which conceives sustainability as a multidimensional and institutionally situated phenomenon, irreducible to any isolated dimension.

In the Midwest school, Indicators 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 were classified at Level 2, reflecting recurring practices of waste management, material reuse, and healthy eating, described as part of citizenship education. The school space and institutional daily life were mobilized as educational environments, with clear pedagogical intentionality, especially through the school garden and conscious consumption habits, although these practices remained poorly formalized as structuring axes of the pedagogical project. Indicator 3.4 constituted the main advance, reaching Level 3, as sustainability was presented as an institutional value effectively incorporated into the school culture, articulating identity, coexistence, daily practices, and ethical formation, evidencing coherence between discourse and practice that went beyond the declarative level. In contrast, Indicator 3.5 remained at Level 1, due to the absence of explicit recognition of climate risks, territorial diagnosis of vulnerabilities, and the incorporation of climate adaptation into institutional planning.

In the Southern school, Indicators 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 were classified at Level 2, while Indicator 3.5 was at Level 0. The sustainable management of natural resources was strongly institutionalized at the organizational level, supported by the CEP Sustentável Project and permanent formal structures, but with poorly explicit pedagogical translation. The physical space presented high educational potential, with laboratories and scientific, cultural, and technical environments; however, the environmental and territorial dimension of the space was not systematized. Environmental values were expressed at the normative and discursive levels but did not consolidate as a shared environmental identity or as an organizational culture lived daily. Indicator 3.5 represented the point of greatest fragility, remaining at Level 0, as the PPP did not recognize climate risks nor articulate pedagogical or institutional actions aimed at climate adaptation, resilience, or school safety in the face of extreme climate events.

The most critical result of Dimension 3, and possibly of the entire research, referred to climate adaptation (Indicator 3.5), which emerged as the most fragile and least institutionalized dimension in both analyzed contexts. This finding acquired relevance when confronted with the growing discursive incorporation of the climate theme in Brazilian legal frameworks, especially from Law No. 14.926 (Brazil, 2024), which amended the National Environmental Education Policy to ensure attention to climate change, biodiversity protection, and socio-environmental risks. The analysis showed that the normative update has not yet translated into verifiable institutional capacity in the analyzed schools, reinforcing the pattern of mismatch between legislation and practice identified by Raymundo et al. (2019) and specifically extending it to the climate dimension.

This gap dialogued directly with the diagnosis by Ganiko-Dutra and Caldeira (2024), who pointed out the fragilities of Brazilian environmental education in the face of the climate crisis. The authors identified that school-based environmental education remains predominantly focused on conservation and awareness practices, with low incorporation of the dimensions of risk, vulnerability, and adaptation. The results of this research confirmed and expanded this diagnosis: in both schools, sustainable practices showed consistent advances in waste management, environmental values, and pedagogical use of space, but revealed an institutional inability to incorporate the territorial reading of climate risks and adaptation as educational and organizational dimensions. This dissociation suggested that school sustainability, as historically constructed in Brazil, has developed predominantly as a conservation and citizenship agenda, without incorporating climate urgency as an organizing axis.

The UNESCO and MECCE (2024) report, in analyzing the relationship between education and climate change on a global scale, reinforced that effective climate learning requires transformations in institutional practices, governance, and the relationship between school and territory, going beyond the curricular dimension. The results of this research aligned with this perspective by evidencing that climate adaptation cannot be treated as a thematic add-on, but as a transversal dimension that simultaneously challenges the management, curriculum, and organizational culture of the school. The absence of territorial diagnostics, climate risk assessment, and articulation with public risk management policies constituted a transversal gap, regardless of the region or the school’s organizational profile, which indicated the need for integrated approaches that articulate education, territory, and institutional resilience. Complementarily, Droubi et al. (2023) argued that education for a just transition requires curricular and institutional transformations guided by social justice and intergenerational responsibility. The results indicated that the analyzed schools demonstrated partial sensitivity to these principles, especially when they articulated sustainability and citizenship, but did not advance towards an education for transition that incorporates climate justice as a formative horizon. This finding reinforced the need, pointed out by Rosa and Kauchakje (2024), for environmental education to overcome a conservationist approach and move towards problematizing socio-environmental inequalities and the differentiated risks imposed by climate change on vulnerable populations.

The advancement to Level 3 of the Midwest school in Indicator 3.4, however, offered evidence that sustainability can be consistently incorporated into the institutional culture, even in contexts of limited resources. This finding confirmed the perspective of Wals (2019), who advocates for sustainability-oriented learning ecologies as a response to global systemic dysfunction, and demonstrated that the construction of a lived environmental culture depended less on infrastructure and more on coherence between values, practices, and institutional identity. This realization had direct implications for school management: investing in a sustainable organizational culture can be a more effective and accessible strategy than programs dependent on physical infrastructure or external certifications, especially in public school systems with limited resources. For climate education, the results of Dimension 3 indicated that incorporating this theme requires not only curricular updates but also a transformation of the school’s institutional relationship with its territory. The absence of vulnerability diagnoses, resilience plans, and articulation with public risk management policies constituted a gap that compromises the schools’ ability to form individuals capable of understanding and facing contemporary climate challenges, as warned by UNESCO (2021) in the Roadmap for Education for Sustainable Development. Overcoming this gap constitutes, in the analyzed cases, the most urgent frontier of school sustainability.

Comparative synthesis and implications for school management

The integrated reading of the three dimensions of the MISE showed that the institutionalization of school sustainability assumed distinct configurations in the two schools analyzed, even when the global levels attributed by the indicators concentrated on similar levels. The application of the model allowed us to observe that sustainability did not manifest as a homogeneous block, but as a set of partially articulated dimensions, whose advances and fragilities varied according to the analytical axis. In both cases analyzed, sustainability tended to consolidate with greater consistency at the normative, organizational, and identity levels, while it presented recurring limitations in pedagogical systematization, curricular integration, and, above all, in the explicit incorporation of climate adaptation into institutional planning.

Three cross-cutting patterns emerged from the comparison between the two cases analyzed. The first referred to the mismatch between normative formalization and institutional operationalization: both schools demonstrated formal adherence to legal frameworks and institutional commitment to sustainability, but the translation of this commitment into management tools, thematic monitoring, and systematic curricular organization remained partial, confirming what Raymundo et al. (2019) identified at the public policy level and extending it to the school’s organizational level. The second pattern referred to the existence of distinct institutional sustainability profiles: the school in the Center-West advanced predominantly through pedagogical identity, territoriality, and organizational culture, while the school in the South advanced through formal governance, administrative institutionalization, and organizational continuity. This distinction of profiles, captured by the MISE, demonstrated that Level 2 of the scale comprised qualitatively diverse configurations, with differentiated implications for strategic planning.

The third and most critical standard referred to climate adaptation as a cross-cutting gap: regardless of the institutional profile, geographical region, or level of maturity reached in the other dimensions, both schools showed significant fragility in incorporating climate risks, institutional resilience, and territorial vulnerability assessment. This result, when confronted with the recent update of the National Environmental Education Policy by Law No. 14.926 (Brazil, 2024) and with the alerts from Ganiko-Dutra and Caldeira (2024), UNESCO and MECCE (2024), and Droubi et al. (2023), suggested that climate adaptation may constitute an underdeveloped frontier of school sustainability, a hypothesis that the two analyzed cases reinforce and that broader research may verify, demanding priority attention from educational public policies and teacher training strategies.

The identified contrasts also evidenced the analytical and discriminatory capacity of the MISE as an institutional diagnostic instrument. By distinguishing not only levels of institutionalization but also qualitative sustainability profiles, the model demonstrated potential as a tool for self-assessment and strategic planning processes in public education networks. This contribution aligned with the demand identified by Ganiko-Dutra and Caldeira (2024) for integrative models capable of assessing the degree of school sustainability, in addition to dialoguing with the operational structures of the Eco-Schools program (FEE, 2022), the Selo Escola Sustentável (State Secretariat of Education of Ceará [SEDUC] and Secretariat of Environment and Climate Change of Ceará [SEMA], 2024), and the MonitoraEA system (National Articulation of Environmental Education Public Policies [ANPPEA] and National Institute for Space Research [INPE], 2023).

For school management, the results indicated that strengthening institutional sustainability requires differentiated strategies according to each school’s profile, overcoming universal prescriptive approaches. Schools with a strong pedagogical and territorial identity need to advance in the formalization of governance structures, thematic monitoring, and systematic curricular organization. Schools with consolidated formal governance need to invest in transversal integration, territorial articulation, and the construction of a sustainable organizational culture. In both profiles, climate adaptation, specific teacher training in environmental and climate education, and the articulation between school and territory emerged as institutional priorities for the advancement of school sustainability in the Brazilian educational context.

The territorial dimension of school sustainability, which proved more advanced in the Center-West school and more fragile in the South school, dialogued with the proposal of the Political-Pedagogical Project of the Coastal and Marine Zone of Brazil (National Articulation of Public Policies for Environmental Education [ANPPEA] et al., 2023), which conceives environmental education as a practice linked to the territory, local ecosystems, and community participation. The results of this research suggested that territorialization constitutes a determining factor for the consolidation of school sustainability, influencing not only governance and articulation with public policies, but also the quality of curricular integration and the density of sustainable organizational culture. Schools that established more consistent links with their territorial contexts demonstrated a greater capacity to translate normative principles into lived institutional practices, corroborating the perspective of Tozoni-Reis and Campos (2014) that critical environmental education is based on the articulation between integral formation, participation, and engagement with local reality.

These findings confirmed the research hypothesis that school sustainability is effective when there is coherence between public policies, pedagogical practices, and institutional management, supported by continuous processes of diagnosis, monitoring, and collective participation. The application of MISE demonstrated that this coherence remained as a horizon to be achieved, accurately identifying where advances were concentrated and where weaknesses persisted, and offering an empirical basis for managers, educators, and public policymakers to guide their decisions based on documentary evidence and structured indicators. In summary, school sustainability results from the articulation between organization, discourse, and pedagogical intentionality, and MISE contributes as an analytical and practical tool for strengthening sustainability in the Brazilian educational context, by discriminating levels and profiles of institutionalization and pointing out priorities for strategic planning.

4. Conclusion

This research evaluated the degree of institutionalization of sustainability in Brazilian public schools, considering the dimensions of management, curriculum, and infrastructure, through the development and application of the School Sustainability Indicators Model (MISE). It was found that the two schools analyzed achieved intermediate levels of institutionalization, but through distinct trajectories: the school in the Center-West advanced through pedagogical identity and territoriality, while the school in the South consolidated through formal governance and organizational continuity. A mismatch was observed between normative formalization and institutional operationalization, a pattern that extended from the public policy level to the organizational level of the schools. Climate adaptation emerged as the least institutionalized dimension in both contexts, revealing a transversal gap between legal frameworks and school practices. Specific teacher training in environmental and climate education also presented itself as a bottleneck, compromising curricular integration and systematic formative intentionality.

The MISE demonstrated analytical and discriminatory capacity, distinguishing not only levels but also institutional sustainability profiles, which constitutes a methodological contribution to diagnostic processes and strategic planning in public education networks. For school management, the results indicate the need for differentiated strategies to strengthen sustainability, overcoming universal prescriptive approaches. The study’s limitations stemmed from the exclusively documentary scope, which did not capture informal practices or perceptions of school actors, and from the sample being restricted to two schools, which prevents generalizations. For future studies, it is suggested to expand the application of the MISE to a larger number of school units and to combine documentary analysis with qualitative methods, such as interviews and observation, for a more comprehensive understanding of lived school sustainability.

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Article originating from the Final Course Work of the Specialization in School Management of the MBA USP/Esalq

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