Competencies in the curriculum - Words of Wisdom
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Sustainability competencies can empower individuals to ‘reflect on their own actions’ and provide cross-cutting skills necessary for both addressing sustainability challenges and working towards the UN’s 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) (UNESCO, 2017).
A point of significant debate in the literature is around which combination of competencies are key for supporting individuals to ‘transform their own lifestyles and contribute to societal transformation towards sustainability (Rieckmann, 2012; Wiek et al., 2011; Bianchi, 2020; Redman & Wiek, 2021). Lwin (2024) and Wilhem et al. (2019) argue that competencies are ‘fundamentally context bound’ and that focus should be on ensuring relevent competencies are successfully integrated and implemented (Wiek & Redman, 2022).
Integrating sustainability competencies within courses can help to create authentic opportunities for learners to build the ‘knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that enable effective, embodied action in the world with respect to real world sustainability problems, challenges, and opportunities, according to the context’ (Bianchi, 2020).
Examples of competency frameworks:
- UNESCO cross-cutting and specialized SDG competencies.
- Inner Development Goals.
- GreenComp: the European sustainability competence framework.
Explanation of sustainability competencies adapted from:
Astles, P., Matthews, C. (2025). Communicating Sustainability Competencies: A Case Study of Sustainability and Learning Design. In: Leal Filho, Walter; Veira Trevisan, Lais; Pace, Paul J. and Mifsud, Mark eds. Education for Sustainable Development: The Contribution of Universities. World Sustainability Series. Cham, CH: Springer, pp. 85–100. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-86985-3_6
References:
Bianchi, G. (2020). Sustainability competences: A systematic literature review. Joint Research Centre (European Commission). https://doi.org/10.2760/200956.
Lwin, B. (2024). Exploring Education for Sustainable Development in Myanmar: Concepts and Models to Influence the Integration in, and the Transformation of, Higher Education Institutions [Doctoral dissertation, The Open University]. Open Research Online. https://oro.open.ac.uk/98089/.
Redman, A., & Wiek, A. (2021). Competencies for Advancing Transformations Towards Sustainability. Frontiers in Education, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.785163.
Rieckmann, M. (2012). Future-oriented higher education: Which key competencies should be fostered through university teaching and learning? Futures. 44(2), 127–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.09.005.
UNESCO (2017), Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives, UNESCO, Paris.
Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., & Redman, C. L. (2011). Key Competencies in sustainability: a Reference Framework for Academic Program Development. Sustainability Science, 6(2), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0132-6.
Wilhelm S, Förster R, Zimmermann AB. (2019). Implementing Competence Orientation: Towards Constructively Aligned Education for Sustainable Development in University-Level Teaching-And-Learning. Sustainability, 11(7), 1891.