The ongoing sustainability crisis offer numerous, multifaced societal challenges as a result of the ongoing degradation of socio-ecological systems by human activity causing massive ecological damage and human suffering. Overcoming these difficulties begs for the rapid transition of society towards sustainability. This desire for urgent action has been hindered by the lack of coordinated global leadership focused on addressing these challenges and implementing a transition towards a sustainable future. The sustainability crisis and its manifestations, which include for example climate change, air and water pollution, deforestation and social segregation, are interconnected and volatile issues whose parts influence and impact each other causing the crisis to worsen. The earth system is pushed towards tipping points from beyond which it may become impossible to maintain the human civilization. The failure of leadership to address the wicked nature of these crises means humanity has been left ill-equipped to deal with the complex problems of sustainability. 

This thesis considers the role of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in overcoming these issues and operating as a leverage point towards sustainability. It focuses on investigating how the development of sustainability leadership education in Higher Education can contribute to addressing the sustainability crisis. It looks at the role that educators can play in designing learning environments that ensure leaders and leadership capable of addressing wicked problems posed by global unsustainability. The aim of this research is to investigate what educators should consider when designing learning environments that promote the qualities needed for leading in complexity towards sustainability. It does this by examining a number of ESD programs as case studies to investigate the efficacy of those programs at creating sustainability outcomes within their students. It also undertakes a literature review to describe and articulate the unique challenges faced by sustainability leaders from a personal and professional perspective. The study is situated closely to the ongoing ESD discussion regarding competencies-based learning for sustainability and the research aims to provide some contribution to that dialogue. It does this through the investigation of competencies acquisition and the discussion of emerging areas of leadership that may hold beneficial outcomes for the development and practice of sustainability leaders. 

 The results of the thesis suggest a number of outcomes for consideration by educators and include a number of main findings. Firstly, educational programs can be capable of achieving the acquisition of ‘sustainability’ competencies within their students, but if these competencies are not taught within a larger sustainability contextualization, then students can fail to see the purpose of the competencies ‘for’ sustainability. Secondly, reflective practices, developed as the result of reflective pedagogies, can provide beneficial qualities in students as future sustainability leaders and require distinct pedagogical structures in order to guide reflective practices towards sustainability outcomes. Finally, a number of unique personal and professional challenges to sustainability leadership exist and need to be overcome if the domain of sustainability is to ensure the ongoing resilience and wellbeing of individuals and groups acting as sustainability leaders. 

 This research suggests a novel contribution to a number of areas within ESD research, including creating knowledge within the competencies discussion regarding emerging areas of study that may influence the future of defined sustainability competencies. It also highlights the need for educators to consider the role of wellbeing and resilience in current and future sustainability leaders. 

Humanity is facing and driving numerous, multifaceted and interconnected crises that are fundamentally endangering the socio-ecological systems’ qualities that are essential for the meeting of human needs in the long term. This thesis considered the role of Education for Sustainable Development as a leverage point to address causes of these crises and support a global transition towards sustainability. The research centered on examining how development of sustainability-focused leadership education within higher education institutes can contribute to the cultivation of durable and effective sustainability leaders. A qualitative action research approach was used to study two educational programs; the Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability program at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Humanitarian Design Summit program operated by Engineers Without Borders Australia. The action research on these cases was supported and complemented by questionnaires, surveys, interviews, content analysis and thematic analysis, as well as literature reviews and mirroring with other similar studies internationally. The research investigated the experiences of participants within these programs, the pedagogies that influenced those experiences and the outcomes of the programs. 

Findings suggest that education can play a significant role in the development of sustainability leadership and the thesis offers guidance and strategies to support that as an outcome from conscious design and operation of sustainability leadership programs. The research highlights the difficult context facing sustainability leadership and the importance of development of ‘inner qualities’ (termed intrapersonal capacities) in response. These capacities may serve as a basis for leaders to endure enacting sustainability leadership by helping them cope with the challenging nature of the work and by providing a clearer language for leadership development. The research also suggests several pedagogical considerations and scaffolds that can be used by educators in their design and cultivation of learning environments for sustainability leadership development. This includes reflections on learning design for transformational learning, the outcomes of transformational learning in students, the use of reflective pedagogies and the development of sustainability-contextualized learning environments. 

The thesis contributes to the fields of sustainability leadership, education for sustainable development and complexity by providing an overview of the state-of the-art of the intersection of these fields and concrete advice and tools to enhance educators’ possibilities to design and implement higher education learning environments that can promote development of leaders capable to cope with and lead effectively in the burdensome and complex reality that sustainability transitions entail.