What is Education for Sustainability?

ESD gives learners of all ages the knowledge, skills, values and agency to address interconnected global challenges including climate change, loss of biodiversity, unsustainable use of resources, and inequality. It empowers learners of all ages to make informed decisions and take individual and collective action to change society and care for the planet. ESD is a lifelong learning process and an integral part of quality education. It enhances the cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural dimensions of learning and encompasses learning content and outcomes, pedagogy and the learning environment itself.

UNESCO (2024)’s definition of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

Education for Sustainability (EfS) offers you a foundation for designing or revising courses, assessments and learning experiences that prepare students to navigate and shape a world defined by change, uncertainty, risk and complexity. Whether you're developing a new course, refreshing an existing one, or aligning programme-level learning outcomes, this overview explains what EfS is, how it developed and why it matters for your teaching.

What Education for Sustainability stands for

Sustainability challenges present as wicked problems that produce what Vogel et al. (2023) call super complexity - where issues spread across interconnected (human and ecological) systems involving multiple stakeholders with competing interests. EfS thus prepares people to cope with, manage and shape social, economic and ecological conditions characterised by change, uncertainty, risk and complexity (Sterling 2008, 9). It represents 'a change of educational culture' that combines both theoretical and practice-based knowledge (Sterling 2008, 14). Effective EfS develops students' sustainability competencies - the socio-emotional and behavioural capacities that enable them to act on their knowledge (Vogel et al., 2023). Moreover, EfS pedagogies offer opportunities to develop such competencies by creating participatory and learner-centred educational experiences, grounding learning in real context-specific issues, making space for collaboration and critical reflection among students, and helping them understand how their personal experiences connect to broader social and ecological systems (Vogel et al., 2023 and Kennelly et al. 2012). Ultimately, this approach supports students in building a 'sustainability-oriented mindset' (Žalėnienė and Pereira 2021).

How Education for Sustainability emerged

EfS emerged from Environmental Education (EE), which gained prominence in the 1970s-1990s following the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment (Uggla and Soneryd 2023). The shift from EE to EfS happened gradually through the 1990s, prompted by the 1987 Brundtland Report and the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. This wasn't just a name change - it marked a pedagogical shift (Uggla and Soneryd 2023; Macintyre, Tilbury, and Wals 2024) as it extended attention from educating on strictly environmental issues to include discussions on how to encourage social and human development within planetary boundaries, envisioning pathways to desirable futures (Stevenson 2006, Uggla and Soneryd 2023 and Macintyre, Tilbury, and Wals 2024). The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations in 2015, accelerated this shift. The 17 SDGs set global objectives for ending poverty, reducing inequality, addressing climate change, and promoting health, education, and sustainable economic growth while protecting natural ecosystems.

“Learning to change the world! What is Education for Sustainable Development?". Visit UNESCO’s website to find out more.

In particular, SDG4: Quality Education recognises education as a key enabler for sustainable development, reinforcing UNESCO‘s mandate to advance education for sustainable development worldwide. According to the United Nations, sustainable development refers to "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987).

Many institutions now use the SDGs to map sustainability across curricula and design learning outcomes - for example, the University of Leicester directly integrates the SDGs into their curriculum design approach.

Critical reflection Reflexive accounts, learning journals, discussion groups
Systemic thinking and analysis Real-world case studies and critical incidents, project-based learning, stimulus activities, campus as a learning resource
Participatory learning Group or peer learning, developing dialogue, experiential learning, action research/learning to act, and developing case studies with local community groups and business
Collaborative learning Guest speakers, work-based learning, interdisciplinary/ multidisciplinary working
Thinking creatively for future scenarios Using role play, real-world inquiry, futures visioning, problem-based learning

The HE sector has a unique role and responsibility in protecting the planet and delivering on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This requires research that makes progress against the SDGs and graduates with the core sustainability competencies required to address financial, environmental and social sustainability. However, 1.7% of Global World Product (GWP) is spent in Higher Education, so the sector also has to take approaches to their people, practices and places that are consistent with the goals.

Advance HE in collaboration with Times Higher Consultancy have developed a range of products for institutions and governments to support the higher education sector to promote and utilise the SDGs to drive institutional change across research and culture, curricula and civic responsibility.

Find out more on their website.

SOS-UK is a student-led education charity focusing on sustainability that:

delivers programmes and campaigns that enable students and society to act on sustainability;
offers a range of learning opportunities and events to support sustainability action across the education sector and beyond;
carries out specialist research into sustainability and social responsibility of the education sector in the UK and internationally;
offers a range of services and packages to help drive sustainability through higher education institutions.

The Green Careers Hub is brand-new government backed resource to give insight into the green jobs of the future launched by Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA).

Learn more here.