This article discusses the formation of ecological awareness where the leading role is played by ecological education. Special attention is paid to this direction of modern reforms in education aka “sustainable development of education”, the implementation of which guarantees the education with advanced ecological awareness that could provide legal protection for human beings, society and nature. Increased interest in the research of justice in the modern world is also caused by buildup of disharmony between the achievements of humanity and natural, environmental issues. Not only a man and society needs the recognition and legal protection of his rights and obligations, but also the nature. In this regard, there was such a thing as environmental conscience, designed to guide the development of legal norms in line with the protection of nature, environment, overcoming the environmental crisis, based on the current state of nature and forecasts for the future. In the scientific literature, a lot of attention is paid to the protection of the environment and the problem of justice. Environmental issues as justice, its concept, mechanisms of formation actualized only in recent years in regard with the inevitability of an environmental catastrophe in case of further consumer attitude towards the environment. The paper recommends the development of new educational standards in the Russian Federation, to consider the principles of sustainable development and to supplement it with aspects of green education, formation of the scientific picture of the world based on the integration of natural science and social-humanitarian disciplines, to include the environmental education in the list of mandatory subjects of general educational institutions and vocational education and to develop appropriate educational standards and training manuals, to create a federal data base of methods of teaching practice, design and research, electronic textbooks, as well as specialized portals in the field of environmental education. The development of ecological sense of justice is one of the fundamentals of building the legal system of civil society, which is designed to ensure the rights, freedoms and duties of man and citizen in terms of environmentally sound harmonious functioning of the system “man-nature-society” in a variety of relationships of its components. One of the first steps of forming ecological awareness is compliance with international environmental standards ISO 14000: international standards for environmental management.

Рассматривается процесс формирования экологического правосознания, ведущую роль в котором играет экологическое образование. Отдельное внимание уделено такому направлению современных преобразований в образовательной сфере, как «образование для устойчивого развития», реализация которого гарантирует обществу подготовку специалистов с развитым экологическим правосознанием, способных обеспечить правовую защиту человеку, обществу и природе.