The New York State Environmental Literacy Plan will serve as a roadmap for achieving environmental literacy. The plan's recommendations seek to achieve the following goals:

• New York students become lifelong stewards of their environment and community, and are willing and able to exercise the rights and responsibilities of environmentally literate citizenship.
• Provide support systems for school districts implementing EE that include access to resources, funding, and curricular tools.
• Teacher education programs should provide current and future teachers with the knowledge, skills, abilities and resources to develop environmentally literate students.
• Graduates of New York State institutions of higher education should be better prepared for creating and living in healthier, and more resilient communities.
• Promote the capacity building of non-formal educators and environmental organizations to increase and support statewide environmental literacy efforts.
• Higher Education faculty should develop the capacity to teach and promote education for sustainability and environmental literacy for higher education audiences.
• Increase the EE professional development of PreK-12 educators to support consistent use of best practices in EE for PreK-12 students.
• Increase the EE professional development of non-formal educators to support consistent use of best practices in EE for diverse audiences.
• Research will be conducted to investigate the best practices of educating students to develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to become environmentally literate and to inform program design and policy.
• In order to meet the needs of educators, a mechanism for compiling and providing access to the vast amount of environmental resources available in New York State needs to be developed and maintained. 

The ELP is divided into 7 specific categories, each with its own set of key goals, objectives, and strategies:

1. PreK-12 Education
2. Teacher Education
3. Higher Education
4. Non-Formal Education
5. Professional Development
6. Research
7. Statewide EE Resource Clearing House

A list of relevant resources for promoting environmental literacy in New York State concludes the ELP.