Learning sustainability through craft
11/20/2025 Carla Martinez
Written by Sofia Marasca
Why manual skills are (still) a pathway to Education for Sustainable Development
When we talk about sustainability in vocational education, we don’t only mean introducing new materials or “green” technologies. Sometimes the most effective way to help students understand what it means to take care of resources is to bring them back to slow, visible and manual processes – to craft. When we can see how an object is made, how long it takes, what kind of waste it produces and how it can be repaired, sustainability stops being an abstract principle and becomes an experience.
With EDUS – Education for Sustainable Development in VET we are collecting stories and practices that go exactly in this direction. One of them is the second episode of the EDUS podcast, where we talk to Lovro Jurečič, a blacksmith from Slovenia, about his journey into sustainable craftsmanship, the philosophy of slow growth, and how “burning your fingers” through mistakes is a priceless part of the process. Following in his great-grandfather’s footsteps, he adapts the craft to today’s needs. His practice is a response to mass-produced, short-lived objects: he makes knives meant to last, traceable to their making, and capable of turning imperfections into value.
In the episode, Lovro tells us that every knife he makes is designed to be numbered, recognisable and, if needed, repairable. This is not just an aesthetic or quality choice: it’s a way to tell learners that objects have a biography and that designing with their life cycle in mind is part of the job. As he says in the interview, “Go and try. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Go, try and fail, and fail again… maybe you will fall in love with it and have a hobby for the rest of your life.” That attitude — accepting failure as part of learning — is exactly what we want to bring into sustainability education.
This approach is particularly valuable for teachers and trainers in VET because it:
- makes the process visible (including mistakes — or, as Lovro says, “burning your fingers”);
- shows that materials can be local or reclaimed (he works with steel from old tractors and wood with cracks and knots);
- introduces the idea of the maker’s responsibility for what they put into the world;
- pushes back against instant gratification, which many young people are used to, by proposing a philosophy of slow growth: learning first, commercial success later.
The episode can be used in class as a starting point to discuss what makes an object “sustainable” and how craft can transmit these transversal skills.
