Sir Geoffrey Holland, once permanent secretary at the Education Department and now vice-chancellor of Exeter University, on Tuesday launched a series of guides to promote sustainable development, education and skills in industry, the trades unions and the local learning and skills councils.

Sir Geoffrey’s aim is simple: to create a green alliance of industrialists, trade unionists and older citizens as “champions” of sustainable development which will take the educational world by surprise.

As chairman of a panel of experts on sustainability set up by the Government, Sir Geoffrey sees the new local learning and skills councils as ideal siege engines for forcing the educational fortress to surrender.

He has little confidence that the new citizenship curriculum or his old department can sufficiently influence thinking on green issues.

He is disappointed in the level of interest in further education colleges (even agricultural colleges), and in universities following the publication of the Toyne report a few years ago.

But he told a conference on sustainable development education in London last week: “For the past two years nothing much has happened, but we are now at the moment when things could really start motoring. Now we have take-off.”

The first step came 10 days ago with the launch of a campaigning book titled Learning to Last, published by the Learning and Skills Development Agency. The next step came this week, hard on the heels of the Countryside March, with the launch of guides on how to influence public opinion and policy, especially through informal learning for older students and by persuading small businesses of the need for staff development.

“We should try to enthuse, energise and support small business leaders and ordinary people. They are well ahead of the politicians. They don’t talk about sustainable development, but about floods, foot and mouth, transport blockades and marches.

“But the Government follows what they want. Older people have more time to reflect and volunteer to become our champions,” Sir Geoffrey said.

John Harwood, chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council, said he was a “true believer” in Sir Geoffrey’s crusade and the LSC had already funded pilot projects from the FE Standards Fund in community regeneration and sustainable development.

But he warned that the Government also had other priorities. “They are weighed down with the expectations of worthy interests. They all hope that education holds the key - to obesity, crime, drugs and so the list goes on. But my experience in Oxford has convinced me there is no correlation between a high level of education and sustainability awareness and what goes on in practice.

“It is easy to argue the case conceptually to justify what you want to do,” he said. “But whether it is valid in practice depends on the mathematics. You will only change Government priorities if your case is measurable in terms of targets and outcomes. This is only the first step along a very long road.”

But Sir Geoffrey retorted: “If we wait for those priorities to change, we may wait for ever. We should focus on informal learning in informal settings.

“This is one of those big opportunities to engage with a whole group of students who have not been structured and sewn up, as we have the younger age groups.”