Trust for Sustainable Living

The TSL 2026 Student Debates will take place in early July 2026

The theme of the TSL 2026 International Student Debates is CREATING A SUSTAINABILITY CULTURE.

The exact dates of the Primary and Secondary School Debates are still to be confirmed.

Watch this space for further Student Debate announcements over the coming months.

 

 

TSL 2025 Student Debates: ECO-ANXIETY TO ECO-ACTION

The TSL 2025 International Student Debates took place online over two days (July 1-2, 2025):

JULY 1 – PRIMARY DEBATE (ages 7-11)

JULY 2 – SECONDARY DEBATE (ages 12-18)

Each country’s top students in the International Student Competition are eligible to participate. Due to the large number of submissions, we regret that not all students can participate as debaters.
However, all students and teachers are warmly invited to participate as members of the online global audience, including the opportunity to send questions to the debaters.

Please note: Participation in the Debates is not mandatory, but it is strongly encouraged! Participating students often make new friendships and have the opportunity to learn from one another and share new experiences.

JUNE 30, 2025 – TEACHER CHAMPIONS WORKSHOP:
Transforming Eco-Anxiety into Positive Action

🕒 9-10 am UTC 🔗 Zoom details sent after registration

Join Trust for Sustainable Living (TSL) and Compass Education for a one-hour Global Educator Workshop focused on using systems thinking to address eco-anxiety through education. This interactive session will encourage discussion about the causes of eco-anxiety and will allow participants to brainstorm ways in which educators and schools can support both youth and adults in transforming anxiety into positive action.

Highlights from 2024

A huge thank you to everyone who took part in our TSL 2024 Partner Power Summit: NATURE BASED SOLUTIONS

The TSL 2024 International Student Debates brought together 55 students from 34 countries. The students expressed different points of view on whether Nature-based or Technology-based solutions would be more effective to achieve the SDG’s by 2030.

The debate was divided into two categories across two days – Primary Debate and Secondary Debate. In the Primary Debate, the debaters explored the role of four key stakeholder groups who play a major role in achieving the SDG’s – Governments, Businesses, Conservationists and the Public and debated if they thought NBS or TBS would be more effective to help their stakeholder group achieve the SDG’s.  The teams then debated which actions would have the greatest impact to achieve the SDG’s and agreed a combination of both NBS and TBS would be required to achieve the SDG’s by 2030.

TSL International Primary Debates 17 July 2024

 

TSL Primary Student Awards- International Student Essay Competition and Student Debates – 17 July

 

In the Secondary Debates, students had the challenge of debating the motion ‘Nature-based Solutions will be more effective then Technology-based Solutions to achieve the UN SDG’s by 2030’. All teams did an excellent job, raising key issues during the debates such as affordability, accessibility, education and training, speed of solution  implementation and effectiveness.

TSL International Secondary Debates Group A, 18 July 2024

 

 

TSL International Secondary Debates Group B  18 July 2024

 

TSL Secondary Student Awards- International Student Essay Competition and Student Debates (Group A & B) – 18 July

The 2026 Competition will open in early September 2025

Key dates