ABSTRACT
The urgent priority for the planet is to understand and activate a transition towards sustainability. Much knowledge and publicity about sustainability has been produced at so many levels; however this has led to so little action. Many reasons have been cited for this lack of success but one that has been overlooked is the lack of awareness of conviction, reflexiveness and behavioural change: critical elements of transformative learning. The debate over the model confirms the authors’ premise that the proposed education for sustainable development (ESD) competences could be seen as general competences for educators, useful and usable for whatever discipline, in a vision of transformative social learning. In 2011 the UNECE has developed a set of core competences in ESD, which however remains a largely theoretical tool that has not been tested against real educational contexts. The model promises to be appreciated by all people engaged in overcoming the disciplinary boundaries in favour of transversal, critical and ‘transgressive’ knowledge-production process.
