Abstract (The role of chemistry and Chemical Education in the construction of a sustainable future) This paper intends to show the important role that chemistry and chemical education can and should play in the huge challenges faced by humanity today, attending to the United Nations call to educators of all levels and areas to contribute to citizens' awareness and understanding of the situation of planetary emergency, in order to enable them to participate in well-founded decision-making aiming to the construction of a sustainable future. In doing so, we search also to contribute to improving education by breaking away from purely operativist approaches that reinforce students' negative attitude towards chemistry and their rejection of studying this subject. These objectives have been joined by the International Year of Chemistry (iyc), aimed at constituting a turning point in the social valuation of chemistry and the launch pad for Green Chemistry.