Sarah Robertson joined the RSC in 2015 and has been developing the organisation’s support for chemistry teaching and its growing leadership and campaigning on sustainability. The chemical sciences will play a pivotal role in solving challenges associated with sustainability and climate change in the future and our society needs citizens capable of making informed decisions, with the skills to work in green jobs in the chemical sciences. We have been working with teachers to help us focus our education policy work in this area by asking about their experiences of teaching sustainability and climate change and listening to their views on the skills and knowledge learners will need. Our work on sustainability in education is complemented by parallel programmes to support teachers’ professional development and to address barriers to participation to ensure that all students have access to an excellent chemistry education.