Conclusions: creating hope through education for future generations

Despite ongoing sustainability challenges, we can offer active hope to learners and educators through education for sustainable development (ESD). Higher education is critical in inspiring, disrupting or reducing aspirations and abilities towards sustainability. This book has analysed how ESD can be a critical change pedagogy, linking theory and practice to support educators and learners to develop competencies through formal, informal and non-formal curricula. Key points from each chapter were highlighted. Overarching themes were identified and discussed. There is a need for universities to support compassionate learning and resist dominant commodification; traverse digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI); encourage plurality, inclusion and wellbeing; investigate competencies and relational and eco-pedagogies; expand knowledge exchange; develop progression and individual and collective learning; and facilitate resilience whilst seeking system transformation. Future research areas identified included the need for acknowledgement of more Global South perspectives, exploration of human-nature relationships, addressing wellbeing, policy engagement, evaluation of ESD, including competencies, adoption of creative pedagogies and the future of universities. It was concluded that ESD can support learning for mainstreaming of sustainable development, but it can also offer a radical critical consciousness and enable transformative, even transgressive learning.