From 2019 to 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer Protection of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, with the support of the Ministry for Children, Youth, Family, Equality, Integration and Refugees, funded the pilot project "Strengthening ESD in elementary education - NRW on the way!". The project was implemented by Innowego - Forum Bildung & Nachhaltigkeit eG and pursued the goal of spreading and supporting education for sustainable development in early childhood education throughout the state even more than before. To this end, it brought together the various stakeholders from the child and youth welfare sector with the environmental/sustainability sector in NRW to discuss how this can be achieved even better in terms of structure and content. In addition, existing support and knowledge structures were made even more visible and new services were presented. Within the project, Innowego developed impulses for the updating and further implementation of the state strategy "Education for Sustainable Development - Future Learning NRW (2016 - 2020)".In April 2021, Innowego - Forum Bildung & Nachhaltigkeit eG presented the impulse paper "BNE im Elementarbereich stärken - Perspektiven und Handlungsfelder für NRW". This paper combines the results of the project and the nationwide process for the UNESCO Global Action Program on ESD (2015-2019) and the follow-up project "Education for Sustainable Development: Towards achieving the SDGs" (ESD 2030) with Innowego's many years of experience and expertise. Solutions and approaches for further strengthening and implementing ESD in early childhood education in NRW were derived, addressing various levels of action and stakeholders.

An overview of ESD in the various education sectors can be found on the web portal on ESD in NRW