Operational principles for fostering transformative qualities and capacities in higher education sustainability science and practice

TY - JOUR

T1 - Operational principles for fostering transformative qualities and capacities in higher education sustainability science and practice

AU - Fagerholm, Nora

AU - Coles, Neil

AU - Beery, Thomas

AU - Torralba, Mario

AU - Hakkarainen, Viola

AU - Albert, Christian

AU - Andersson, Erik

AU - Bergström, Ryan

AU - Bieling, Claudia

AU - Gentin, Sandra

AU - Klonner, Carolin

AU - Stahl Olafsson, Anton

AU - Raymond, Christopher

AU - Rouhiainen, Henna

AU - Wamsler, Christine

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

PY - 2025/10/6

Y1 - 2025/10/6

N2 - Education for sustainability is widely recognised as a critical pathway for driving the transformations needed to address today’s polycrisis. Despite growing theoretical and conceptual advancements in sustainability education, current approaches have not achieved the deep systemic changes required. While university networks and individual institutions increasingly integrate sustainability into their education, concerns persist that transformative learning agendas often remain superficial. In particular, they frequently fail to equip learners with the emotional resilience and skills necessary to engage effectively with complex global challenges, as well as educators with the pedagogical framework to facilitate such learning. This article emphasises the need to advance transformative learning in sustainability science and practice in higher education by addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability: our individual and collective values, beliefs, worldviews, and associated transformative qualities and capacities. This means targeting deep leverage points and meaningful change by supporting more relational approaches, including an integrated inner–outer change in being, thinking, and acting. We provide seven operational principles for supporting the inner–outer transformation towards sustainability in learning and teaching sustainability science and practice, especially in geography and related fields. These principles highlight the importance of nurturing five clusters of transformative qualities and capacities—awareness, connection, insight, purpose, and agency—guided by relational approaches required to support profound and integrative learning experiences. We provide concrete examples of how to implement these principles. The proposed principles aim to inspire educators and learners to deeply engage with sustainability challenges to contribute to transformative change across individual, collective, and system levels.

AB - Education for sustainability is widely recognised as a critical pathway for driving the transformations needed to address today’s polycrisis. Despite growing theoretical and conceptual advancements in sustainability education, current approaches have not achieved the deep systemic changes required. While university networks and individual institutions increasingly integrate sustainability into their education, concerns persist that transformative learning agendas often remain superficial. In particular, they frequently fail to equip learners with the emotional resilience and skills necessary to engage effectively with complex global challenges, as well as educators with the pedagogical framework to facilitate such learning. This article emphasises the need to advance transformative learning in sustainability science and practice in higher education by addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability: our individual and collective values, beliefs, worldviews, and associated transformative qualities and capacities. This means targeting deep leverage points and meaningful change by supporting more relational approaches, including an integrated inner–outer change in being, thinking, and acting. We provide seven operational principles for supporting the inner–outer transformation towards sustainability in learning and teaching sustainability science and practice, especially in geography and related fields. These principles highlight the importance of nurturing five clusters of transformative qualities and capacities—awareness, connection, insight, purpose, and agency—guided by relational approaches required to support profound and integrative learning experiences. We provide concrete examples of how to implement these principles. The proposed principles aim to inspire educators and learners to deeply engage with sustainability challenges to contribute to transformative change across individual, collective, and system levels.

KW - Emotional resilience

KW - Inner dimensions

KW - Relational approaches

KW - Sustainability education

KW - Systemic change

KW - Transformative learning

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105018482761

U2 - 10.1007/s11625-025-01746-z

DO - 10.1007/s11625-025-01746-z

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105018482761

SN - 1862-4065

JO - Sustainability Science

JF - Sustainability Science

ER -