Truly Transformative? Why ESD Falls Short in Epochal Times

Abstract

This reflective article argues that despite the widespread adoption of education for sustainable development (ESD), most manifestations of ESD are not sufficiently radical. They do not effectively nurture the kinds of social learning and societal shifts that international agencies agree are urgently needed to address current unsustainable socioeconomic pathways. Ten points are presented, which offer a coherent appraisal and critique of ESD. An argument is presented that in conditions of polycrisis and a threatened future, much greater efforts should now be directed towards whole system change at all levels—truly transforming education policy and practice as a whole, so that it can in turn be transformative in effect. This shift needs to be based on the conscious adoption of an emergent ecological or relational worldview in order to transcend the persistent and narrowing effects of mechanistic, neoliberal and economistic influences on educational thinking and practice. This emergent paradigm is life-affirming and offers hope for the future.

We face an existential choice between continuing on an unsustainable path or radically changing course… Education is crucial to this change of course… Yet education itself must be transformed.

—UNESCO (2024), Concept Note, ‘Renewing Education to Transform the Future’, UNESCO.

…education systems often reproduce and perpetuate the very conditions that threaten our shared futures…limiting education’s potential to be truly transformative. (p. 11)

—ICFE (2021)

This is the acute paradox now facing educational thinking, policy and practice: Education is seen as critical to the possibility of securing a liveable future, yet at the same time, this depends on the transformation of education—which is, however, deeply rooted in the current social order and culture.

The second quotation above is from the International Commission on the Futures of Education (ICFE), which was initiated by UNESCO in 2019 to catalyse a debate on ‘how education needs to be rethought in a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty, and fragility’ (ICFE, 2021, p. 2). ICFE’s damning critique concerning the maladaptation of global education systems to our unstable world reflects a growing unease that the net effect of educational policy and practice over years—notwithstanding notable exceptions—has had a negative rather than a positive effect on our fragile planetary prospects. But what if this critique applies not only to mainstream education, but also—at least to some degree—to much of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) which, for more than the thirty-plus years since the Earth Summit of 1992, has been promoted and adopted globally as fundamental to ensuring a safe, secure and sustainable future?

Undoubtedly, the best manifestations of ESD (such as are represented in the UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD) have been and are undeniably an effective and inspiring force for positive change. But, measured against the gravity of failing planetary systems (Lenton et al., 2023) and the existential threat posed by the tightening global polycrisis (Lawrence et al., 2024; UNEP, 2024; WEF, 2024) that defines our epochal age, ESD as a broad movement falls seriously short. In brief, ESD—as it is currently conceived and practised—can too often be philosophically flawed, outdated and insufficiently transformative to address these volatile times. The crux of the argument, as reasoned below, lies in the social and educational paradigms that inform the conception and practice of ESD—and more broadly, education as a whole.

Understandably, these perilous times are fuelling an intense focus on the role and adequacy of education, echoed notably in the UN Transforming Education Summit (TES) held in September 2022, the UN Summit of the Future of September 2024, and UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative including the international forum ‘Renewing Education to Transform the Future’ (to be held in Korea in December 2024). Yet, if ESD is problematic, it is essential that current and future global efforts to re-imagine education are not held back by unexamined assumptions and practices in ESD, and across education more broadly. This point is reflected by ICFE, which states (2021, p. 64):

…what should be learned, and what should be unlearned? This is a particularly important question at this critical juncture in which the mainstream development and economic growth paradigm needs to be rethought in the light of the ecological crisis.

In 1991, I gave a paper at a conference in New Zealand which was held to examine the role of education in the wake of the 1987 Brundtland Report ‘Our Common Future’—which notably carried the concept of ‘sustainable development’ into international currency. In using the neologism ‘education for sustainable development’ in that paper, I may—or may not—have been the first person to coin that seminal phrase publicly (Sterling, 1991). Since then, I have been heartened, surprised and impressed by its rapid global adoption, a phenomenon made possible by the long-term commitment and energies of UNESCO. But I have also become uneasy over time: Has the ESD phenomenon diverted the attention and energies of the education community from a bigger and more important task?

Of the four questions in the Concept Note for this JESD Special Issue, the topmost must surely be, ‘What kind of education do we need to address the pressing challenges of the twenty-first century?’ Whether ESD—as it is currently conceived and practised—is appropriate, robust enough and sufficient to address these urgent existential challenges and advance the SDGs significantly should concern us. Education as a whole needs, as soon as practically possible, to be made commensurate with the pressing global and planetary realities facing the world. The ten issues below summarise the issues with which all and any ‘education for change’ policies and practices need to grapple—and particularly ESD, given its status as the widely identified key to social change. The argument stems from my many decades of involvement and experience in this field and from the perspective of ecological and systemic thinking that has long marked my contribution.

Ten Issues

1. Threatened futures

   There can be no doubt that we live in epochal times, sometimes referred to as the Anthropocene age (Lewis & Maslin, 2018), with respect to the massive deleterious effects that human activity is having on earth systems (Carrington, 2024; Lenton et al., 2023), and so rendering a highly uncertain and possibly catastrophic future. Therefore, this first issue centres on whether ESD embraces fully the severity of the global condition, recognises that the continuity of humanity and liveability of the planet is in the balance, and takes due account of the critical trends, difficult choices and possible futures facing current and future generations.

   There is a growing scientific consensus that our techno-industrial societies may well experience systemic breakdown at some point this century (Lenton et al., 2023; WEF, 2024). This rupture may be ecological, technological, societal, economic, political or some combination, and if it occurs, it is likely to be calamitous. However, a good deal of ESD policy and practice appears to rest on an assumption of continuity rather than discontinuity and disruption, albeit with greener policies and practices across human activity. Rather ESD—and all change movements working for betterment—need to engage in two critically important tasks: one, to address, critique and oppose the drivers behind negative trends and dangerous trajectories; and second, to make a critical contribution to exploring and building safe, viable and resilient systems at all levels, respecting planetary boundaries (Gaffney & Rockström, 2021). Success in these tasks hinges on the worldview(s) informing educational endeavour.

2. Worldview blindness

   The second issue concerns the paradigm(s) underpinning and influencing ESD policy and practice. I have argued extensively over the years (e.g., 2001, 2004, 2022, 2024) that the modern educational paradigm reflects the dominant Western cultural paradigm or worldview. Unless deep critical reflection is employed, the influence of this paradigm often renders ESD to be conformative, or at best reformative rather than (as is often advocated or claimed), transformative. The international debate on education and sustainability tends to focus on policy and practice, and to a degree, purpose. But the deeper level of cultural paradigm, or of educational paradigm which gives rise to dominant sets of assumptions, values and beliefs including purpose is much less examined.

   Our shared Western worldview (or episteme) is mechanistic, anthropocentric, technocentric, materialist, dualist, positivist, reductionist, objectivist and rationalist, and this way of perceiving, thinking and engaging both infuses and shapes accepted educational norms. This has been compounded by the ideologically driven neoliberal and economistic paradigm that has dominated political, social and economic policy since the late 1970s and has profoundly reoriented educational policy and practice towards market and competitive models. The reductionist intellectual tradition, overlain by the neoliberal agenda, and the Global Education Industry demoting education as a public and common good, has led to a narrowing of educational purpose, content and practice in the service of the globalised growth-oriented economy for some decades. By contrast, the rising agenda, underlain by the emerging postmodern ecological worldview of relationality rather than separateness, is about regeneration, restoration and resilience—in ecosystems, in economies working within planetary boundaries, in communities and in education.

   I am persuaded by much of the rhetoric associated with UNESCO’s Futures of Education work, but what is very largely missing is deep and robust critique of the dominant social and educational paradigms that thwart significant progress—and clear visioning and elaboration of the ecological paradigm that can underpin, inform and catalyse the forward thinking that is emerging from this important global initiative. Encouragingly, ICFE states (2021, p. 33) that ‘…there are early signs that we are moving towards a new ecologically oriented education rooted in understandings that can rebalance our ways of living on Earth and recognize its interdependent systems and their limits’. This endorsement of education informed by an ecological perspective is particularly significant, yet the absence of discussion on its meaning and implications is a serious omission. Rather, the report is essentially anthropocentric, and the paradigmatic basis of transformative change in education is not discussed. Very briefly, an ‘ecologically oriented education’ would see it becoming much more holistic, anticipative, futures-oriented, experiential, diverse, plural, inclusive, locally rooted, explorative and creative in building a safer future for all. Progress here necessitates attention to the labels we use and the boundaries we employ.

3. Labels and boundaries

   Naming is a tricky issue. Clearly, a label—such as ‘Education for Sustainable Development’—is necessary to help suggest and communicate meaning. However, without delving into the complex history of this area—and the various names that have emerged over decades within the education and sustainability fields—we need to recognise the downside of the ‘ESD’ label. This is partly a question of demarcation. That is, where do the boundaries of ESD lie? The answer depends on whether it is seen as a distinct field of education operating within the larger whole educational enterprise or whether it is instead seen as a new whole paradigm of education for our times. If the former, what areas of educational policy and practice, if any, lie outside its boundaries? If the latter, then—as has been shown in practice—many forms of and emphases in education may see ESD as colonising their fields and either fail to see its relevance or question its tenets. Not least, there is some history of those involved in environmental education, global citizenship education and other related fields resenting a perceived takeover by ESD. Perhaps ‘ESD’ as a label for this movement is no longer appropriate and is limiting significant progress. This issue is revisited in point 7 below. The boundary issue also applies to the scope of our work—how far formal education connects with social movements for sustainability and regeneration outside the institution.

   A further issue concerns the ‘sustainable development’ part of the ESD label. The concept of sustainable development has given rise to two phenomena—the global adoption of the term and a response across multiple sectors galvanised further by the UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015, and second, a necessary yet continuous debate about the meaning, ambiguity and implications of the term. The spectrum of interpretations hangs essentially on the view of economic growth and ranges from oxymoronic ‘sustainable growth’, to light touch greening of Business as Usual (BAU), to green growth (ecomodernism), to steady-state economy, to post-growth and degrowth. Here, the common critique of ESD is that its instrumentalism is too often aligned uncritically with supporting an anthropocentric, technocentric, managerialist and mainstream view of green growth, while at the same time, its scope and ambition are trammelled by the narrowing influence of neoliberal policies on education. In this respect, the laudable rationale for ESD espoused by UNESCO—as an instrument of individual and radical societal transformation and key to the aspirations of Education 2030—is seriously compromised and also raises the issue of the development model informing ESD. This issue is revisited in point 9 below. In the meantime, the question of how far education can or should be driven by instrumental values is a major issue in ESD and beyond, and this is considered in the next section.

4. Instrumentalism

   The issue here pertains to the ‘education for’ part of ESD. This centres on the inherent tension in educational debate between:

5. education purposed towards specified ‘outcomes’—reflecting instrumental values.

In sum, the tension concerns a ‘process’ view of education versus a ‘product’ view.

Since the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, UNESCO has championed the incorporation of ESD in national educational policy making. ESD is seen as a key facilitator and means of attaining sustainable development and the SDGs—and UNESCO’s continuing commitment to this work was renewed at the UNESCO General Conference in 2023. Despite widespread adoption at the international level, this movement has had (and continues to have) pushback from some quarters, including academics and practitioners who feel rightly or wrongly that this instrumental orientation compromises the integrity of the educational process and may be behaviourist. This tension has had a continuous and serious braking effect on the adoption of ESD.

I have argued in some detail (Sterling, 2024) first, that both these positions are important and necessary, and are reconcilable in a larger paradigm of (what I have called) Sustainable Education (Sterling, 2001). Second, that explication and recognition of this expanded paradigm—based upon relationality and an ecological or systemic worldview—is urgently required to facilitate the re-imagination and transformation of education for our perilous times.

Transformation misconstrued

The view that educational policy and practice need to be transformed in order to be truly transformative (ICFE, 2021, p. 11) has gained increasing support and status at the international level over recent years and is central in current high-level rhetoric. The reason given by ICFE is that: ‘education is not yet fulfilling its promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable futures’ (ICFE, 2021, p. 6).

These important statements raise some very pertinent questions—which need far more discussion than the debate currently reflects. These include:

What is maladapted as regards conventional thinking, policy and practice in education such that transformation is now seen as necessary? Why is it maladapted?

Is the word transformation recognised—in line with learning theory—as meaning and involving a significant shift in values and worldview? That is, it is a shift far more fundamental than mere adjustment or reformation.

Is the need for two stages of learning sufficiently recognised? First, that transformative change in education depends on deep learning (viz second order learning (Ison & Straw, 2020)) on the part of educational policymakers and actors across the educational systems. Second, such learning then enables educational institutions to generate deep learning amongst students through education.

Is the philosophic basis of the required shift towards the ecologically oriented education that ICFE welcomes (ICFE, 2021, p. 33) sufficiently examined and explicated, and its implications for policy and practice elaborated?

Is the purpose of a transformed educational policy, practice or institution sufficiently clear? That is, beyond the achievement of the SDGs, what social, economic and ecological trends and scenarios should education be aligned with in order to increase the chances of a safe and more sustainable future than the dangerous one currently in prospect? This relates to the development model that informs practice (which is discussed under 9 below).

The ‘transformation of education’ raises issues about how sustainability education is regarded, adopted and implemented by an institution—which is touched on next.

Accommodation and compromise

This issue concerns the strategy of educational change employed in the implementation of ESD. For many years, the response of formal education and its institutions to the sustainability agenda has been one of incorporation or accommodation. The language used to describe this ‘add on’ approach has typically been ‘embedding sustainability’. This, it is argued, is a better than a nil response. Certainly, seen positively, this common approach can be the first step in a learning journey towards deeper institutional change—which takes significant time and effort. Yet commonly, this first step remains the only step. In effect, it can be a way of containing the challenge that ESD may present to mainstream policy and practice, even where the neutralisation of ESD is not intended.

Change theorists make a distinction between accommodative change that occurs within a given system that itself remains unchanged, and systemic change where such change alters the system (Watzlawick et al., 1980, p. 50). I have argued that sustainability implies the latter—a rapid evolution of fundamental epistemology and culture, whereby sustainability sets whole system change in motion (Sterling, 2004). This is not to underestimate the difficulty that such whole-scale systemic change presents, but if education is to make the qualitative difference to learners and thereby to society that IFCE, UNESCO and other key players desire, it is important to recognise, and to strive towards this visionary goal. This tension between an emphasis on ESD—or on deeper systemic change—is the next issue.

Ambivalence: whole system change—or ESD?

This concerns the pursuit of two goals—which may be complementary or counterproductive: on one hand, the call for a new vision for education as a whole—and on the other, the promotion of ESD. UNESCO has long maintained a twin-track approach, supporting both ESD and calls for rethinking education in its entirety. It is debatable whether these two strategies are complementary or, to a degree, counteractive as regards take up and implementation in practice.

Seen positively, ESD may be seen as a precursor and agency to deeper and more wholesale systemic change across educational policy and practice. There is evidence that this can happen. More frequently, it is often contained or paid lip service, an institution claiming it has delivered sustainability education in some part of its offering, whilst failing to recognise the implications for the system as a whole. To quote from UNESCO’s own ‘Roadmap: ESD for 2030’, ESD is often ‘interpreted with narrow focus on topical issues rather than with a holistic approach on learning content, pedagogy, and learning outcomes’ (UNESCO, 2020, p. 9). We must ask whether efforts to promote and practice ESD are diverting time and attention from re-thinking education across the board. The ICFE is in no doubt about the need for the latter: ‘to shape peaceful, just and sustainable futures, education must itself be transformed’ (ICFE, 2021, p. 6).

Now, at the international level, there is an increasing focus on re-evaluating the adequacy of educational systems (as outlined above). If it is agreed that perilous global conditions and achievement of the SDGs require the wholesale repurposing and re-imagining of educational systems, then this necessitates at least second-order learning within entire educational communities including stakeholders, policymakers, institutions and practitioners. This is daunting but not impossible—a social learning process that goes beyond the current focus on the individual.

Individualistic focus

The traditional focus in educational policy and programmes has long been on the individual learner rather than the collective. This emphasis is compounded in the current educational environment where older progressive and liberal values such as empathy, cooperation and mutuality have been demoted by the dominance of a neoliberal view of education stressing a narrow individualism, competition, metrics and testing. At the same time, it has suited the neoliberal view of the world to shift the blame for sustainability issues onto individuals to deflect critical scrutiny of corporate or government policy (Irwin, 2022). Arguably, this has influenced much ESD to concentrate on values, individual action and behaviours, by default deflecting attention from structural causes of unsustainable lifestyles. And yet the SDGs and global reports rightly stress the urgency and need for collective and community action, a societal transition, rather than personal actions in isolation. Not least, individual civic agency is limited in the context of economic systems and political structures where hegemonic power and policy and the ability to exert decisive change resides. It is questionable whether ESD rhetoric and guidance do enough to emphasise the importance of learning communities, of co-inquiry, service learning and acting together if we are to achieve social transformation.

This issue is illustrated further by examining the ‘system of interest’ that demarcates ESD. Following Wilber’s Integral Theory of human knowledge and experience (2001), it is demonstrable that much ESD/environmental and sustainability education focusses primarily on the individual and exterior aspects of knowing and change, and tends to neglect the intersubjective collective and interior domain of societal culture. The latter is the domain of shared worldview, belief and paradigm, which influences almost everything in human affairs—including the conception and practice of education—and it is here that the possibility of transformation and cultural change needs to be explored and nurtured. Not least, this domain influences how mainstream society views the meaning of development—and sustainable development.

The development model

This issue concerns the prevailing conception of the term ‘sustainable development’ (SD) in the ESD equation. The question here is whether those involved in ESD policy and practice are sufficiently reflexive and explicit with regard to the meaning and implications of SD. The raison d’etre and promise of the whole ESD movement is that it can help facilitate a societal shift away from a course of unsustainable development that has a degenerative and disintegrative effect on socio-ecological systems. Yet—perhaps because it is politically contentious—little tends to be said in ESD discourse about the ecological and societal costs of the modernist project, its assumptions, and the widely accepted yet largely unexamined equation between progress, dominant development patterns and material economic growth. Without such a critique, and in the absence of deep inquiry and advocacy regarding the nature of economic development that can be sustained within planetary boundaries, ESD is in danger of ‘sustaining unsustainable development’—whilst purporting to do the opposite (Irwin, 2022; Lange, 2023). As the ICFE states: ‘For too long, education itself has been based on an economic growth-focused modernization development paradigm’ (ICFE, 2021, p. 33). The corollary of this issue is a deficit in much ESD policy and practice as regards the exploration of economic and social alternatives to the BAU paradigm of blinkered pursuit of perpetual growth despite evident and growing social, political and ecological costs. Rather than material growth, ‘the economic focus has to shift to growth in wellbeing’ (Dixson-Declève et al., 2022, p. 347; UNEP, 2024).

It is due to these concerns that there is a growing (if still peripheral) discourse which goes beyond the normal parameters of ESD debate—and also beyond the usual conceptions of sustainable development. This discourse argues that it is no longer sufficient to equip people with sustainability competencies and skills—as is commonly advocated. Rather, education needs to engage proactively in two tasks: first, informed analysis and critique of current drivers fuelling the polycrisis, and second, visioning and exploration of practicable positive pathways and futures. These tasks are key if education is to help bring about the kinds of social transition that are urgently necessary; if it is to be ‘truly transformative’. To elaborate: interest in transgressive education (Wals, 2022) exemplifies the critical strand of theory and agency, whilst growing advocacy of regenerative education (Kumar & Howarth, 2022; Lange, 2023) allied with renewal of interest in regeneration (Hawken, 2021), localism, ecodevelopment, human-scale development and post-growth economics may be seen as an important expression of alternative development models in the drive to decarbonise society, reduce impact and pursue wellbeing for humans and the natural world. This emerging paradigm resonates with the urgent debate now focussing on the purpose of education in these troubled times (ICFE, 2021)—which is the final topic.

Purpose and the great leap

The final issue concerns the purpose, goals and direction of ESD and, more widely, education as a whole. As outlined at the start of this article, the Concept Note, ‘Renewing Education to Transform the Future’ (UNESCO, 2024) specifically accepts and underlines that ‘We face an existential choice between continuing on an unsustainable path or radically changing course’. The Concept Note further highlights the transformation and renewal of education as central to achieving this radical change of course.

The growing international consensus around these arguments is critically important and extremely welcome. But within this consensus, clarity about the nature of transformation and second about the directions of radical course change is far less evident. This shortfall should concern us all. In the limited space available, I have attempted to throw some light on the former issue. With regard to societal transition, a number of initiatives and studies contrast two critical pathways: the current and increasingly dysfunctional BAU trajectory and the alternative path of human and planetary flourishing. This shift is variously identified as the Great Transition (Raskin, 2022), the World We Must Create (Figueres & Carnac, 2020) and the Great Leap (Dixson-Declève et al., 2022).

In the Earth for All ‘Survival Guide for Humanity’ (a Club of Rome report undertaken fifty years after Limits to Growth; Dixson-Declève et al., 2022), the current ‘Too Little Too Late’ scenario is contrasted with the necessary ‘Great Leap’ guided by planetary boundaries. The latter is described as ‘an essential reboot of civilisation’s guiding rules before the system crashes’ involving ‘a new type of economy fit for the Anthropocene…that removes poverty, promotes social and environmental wellbeing, and measures its progress by how well people and planet thrive’ (Dixson-Declève et al., 2022, p. 29). Seminal work on planetary boundaries (Gaffney & Rockström, 2021) and the clarion call ‘Global Tipping Points’ report on critical Earth systems (Lenton et al., 2023) also stress ‘positive social tipping’ points as key to societal change. This agenda is a pressing challenge and invitation to re-imagine and re-purpose educational policy and practice—in order to embrace this movement fully. By so doing, education will engage in building a culture of ‘planetary stewardship’ (Gaffney & Rockström, 2021) that can counter and ameliorate an epochal age of increasing risk and climate emergency.

Education urgently needs to recognise, endorse and align its critical agency towards supporting this historic change of societal trajectory for the sake of the collective survival and wellbeing of people and of nature, natural systems and the planet. We are inextricably entangled and implicated in the whole matrix and, therefore, responsible. In these dangerous times, the purpose and role of education can no longer be the traditional one of socialisation and social reproduction. Rather, this new agenda is about re-imagining education for our times based upon a relational/systems view of the world and of education; about embracing the daunting yet exciting possibilities of making a liveable future (Lange, 2023). As I have advocated (Sterling, 2024, p. 49), education is now challenged:

to transform itself so that it can be transformative in effect; regenerate itself so that it can be regenerative. The opportunity is to engage in rebuilding abundant human and nature-based capacity in the world, both conserving and developing potential, regenerating diversity, community, resilience, system health and sustainability through creativity, collaboration, and hope wherever and whenever possible, and at every level.

Encouragingly, in-depth research that I undertook for a book in 2023 showed evidence that there is a growing and positive response to the kind of issues raised in this article across formal and particularly non-formal education, with new organisations, networks and initiatives informed by a regenerative ethos arising. This ‘beyond ESD’ movement, whilst still emerging, may be seen as echoing and supporting shifts in wider society. The recent UNEP report on planetary health and global human well-being finds incipient and growing signs of a ‘mindset of continuous learning…with active unlearning of engrained beliefs, attitudes and behaviours’ consistent with an emerging paradigm where the status quo is rejected in favour of sustainability transitions. It adds: ‘Although transforming cultural paradigms, mindsets and worldviews is often very difficult, it potentially offers the most powerful leverage point for effecting change in societal systems’ (UNEP, 2024, p. 32). How fast can formal education become central and catalytic—rather than marginal—to this vital learning revolution?

Some Terms

• Polycrisis—A term used to describe the complexity and intractability of the multiple and interconnected systemic problems that affect the world.

• Learning levels (or orders of learning)—This is a framework put forward by Gregory Bateson (1972), which has been influential in learning theory since. Bateson distinguished between three orders or depths of learning and change, which correspond to increases in learning capacity. First-order learning refers to change within particular boundaries without examining or changing the assumptions or values that inform that practice, whereas second-order learning or meta-learning refers to a significant change in thinking or in practice as a result of examining assumptions and values. The third order is epistemic and involves a change in worldview.

• Mechanistic worldview—A culturally shared view of reality founded upon the machine metaphor whereby organisms and phenomena are seen as analogous to a machine and may be understood by reductionist approaches. This social paradigm contrasts with ecological/systemic/holistic views of the world (Capra & Luisi, 2014).