2026 Competition: CREATING A SUSTAINABILITY CULTURE

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We are delighted to announce that the theme of the TSL 2026 International Student Competition is:

CREATING A SUSTAINABILITY CULTURE

The competition is free to enter for all students worldwide between 7 and 18 years of age.

Students are warmly invited to participate by submitting ONE (1) single entry each.

All entries must be submitted on our TSL Competition platform by a registered Teacher Champion, so please create a teacher/parent account if you don’t already have one.

Ten years ago, at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, all 193 UN Member States signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs serve as a universal commitment to ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring peace and prosperity for all people.

While the SDGs remain vital, the reality of achieving them is proving challenging for many countries around the world. Ten years, or two-thirds of the way, into the 15-year timeframe for delivering the SDGs, progress has proved inadequate, with only a fraction of the SDG targets on track, and many goals stalled or regressing.

In 2022, at a UNESCO summit in Mexico, over 150 States adopted an ambitious Declaration for Culture, recognising that it was time to unleash the potential of culture for sustainable development. Ministers of Culture from around the world are calling for culture to become a stand-alone goal in the post-2030 international development agenda. A follow-up summit, the World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2025 , is now planned for Sept/Oct 2025 in Barcelona, Spain.

In the TSL 2026 International Student Competition, we want to hear what schoolchildren think: How can we create this new “sustainability culture” and help achieve the SDGs in our communities and around the planet?

Can culture change help us achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

The graphic below shows some of the many ways that culture and sustainability are linked (Source: UNESCO – Time to unleash the  potential of culture for sustainable development):

2025 Competition: ECO-ANXIETY

Thank you for participating in our 2025 Competition, FROM ECO-ANXIETY TO ECO-ACTION.

We’re pleased to report that we received a record-setting 2,170+ entries this year from 81 countries!

Michelle Amadiegwu – THERE’S NO PLANET B – TSL International Student Competition – Grand Prize Winner

Michelle Amadiegwu – THERE’S NO PLANET B – Music Video

Do Dinh Nhat Vuong – VOICE FROM AN 8 YEAR OLD CITIZEN OF VIETNAM – TSL International Student Competition – Runner Up Winner

• Congratulations to all the 2025 winners

We’d like to recognise the hard work and dedication of all the students who submitted entries. Thank you so much for taking part.

Students with the top-scoring entries receive recognition as Finalists (top 10% of entries), Honourable Mentions (top third of entries) or Top 10 Winners, along with a certificate for themselves and their Teacher Champion.

• Retrieve your CERTIFICATE (simply login with the email used to register)

The TOP 10 results were announced at the Student Awards, immediately following the TSL 2025 International Student Debates on July 1-2.

For the latest competition updates, please visit our website regularly, and look out for emails from us – which we send to the Teacher Champion email addresses provided when you registered for the competition. (Please check you spam folder, and remember that sometimes students register with their personal email addresses, rather than their Teacher Champion email addresses.)

In 2025, in celebration of the 15^th year of the International Student Competitions, we were excited to invite students to share their original, creative and expressive responses to the theme, From Eco-Anxiety to Eco Action & Empowerment. Since our first competition was launched in 2010, we have received well over 17,000 entries from 120 countries, exploring a wide range of topics from biodiversity and sustainable cities, to climate justice and nature-based solutions.

Eco-anxiety refers to negative emotional responses arising from the environmental and climate crisis. A 2024 United Nations report says that eco-anxiety is an ‘emergency crisis hidden in plain sight’ and is likely to have a massive impact on the world’s children and youth. Recent global surveys have indicated that over 50% of young people experience eco-anxiety and are worried about environmental and climate change, with many reporting feelings of sadness, anxiousness, anger, powerlessness, helplessness and guilt. Such responses are natural and healthy, and many believe these feelings can be channelled to help encourage engagement, understanding and action at an individual and group level, as demonstrated by the recent rise in youth engagement and action over the last few years.

TSL wants to help young people develop a sense of agency, empowerment and hope for solutions and action by creating a safe and supportive space and outlet for expression for students and teachers to explore moving from feelings of eco-anxiety, to eco action & empowerment. We are open to accepting any form of student response, you can choose to create a piece of artwork, music, video, poem, essay, letter, story, etc..  There are very few restrictions on the type of work submitted. We want students to be open and creative when interpreting the theme. All entries must meet the submission criteria.

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