The global challenges of our time are unprecedented and urgent action for transformation is needed of our systems, policies, institutions and ways of thinking. Education of sustainability leaders is one of the key leverage points to achieve this and many claim that learning on an individual, organisational and societal scale is required for society’s successful transitioning towards sustainability. 

In this relatively new field, practitioners and scholars grapple with what best promotes development of sustainability leadership, and with what competencies, capacities and transformative outcomes educators should be aiming to develop. The aim of this work was therefore to establish an improved understanding of this and to find recommendations for educators with ambitions to create systems change for sustainability by building the capacity of people to be sustainability leaders. 

As an educator and facilitator of sustainability work for over a decade, working at the crossroads of education for sustainability leadership; organisational  and community change, lecturing on leadership for sustainability in Australia and currently being Co-Director of the Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) program in Sweden, I have rested this thesis firmly within an action-oriented transformation research paradigm in which the only way to understand a system is through a comprehensive attempt to change it. Seven cases of sustainability leadership education are presented. Methods include surveys with open questions; workshops; interviews; document analysis; and, ethnographic field work. 

The thesis provides support for design of sustainability leadership education through the following outcomes: 

• Recommendations and improvements on a Typology for Transformative Learning to guide educators in designing and assessing transformative sustainability leadership education; 
• Eight Intrapersonal Capacities that may provide a map of the Intrapersonal Competence. These are: Hold complexity, Foster a learners mindset, Deeply value others, Let be, Show up as one’s full self, Regulate and manage the self, Persist with lightness and Ensure one’s wellbeing;
• Suggestions that the integration of the components of community, place, content, pedagogy and disorientation with hope and agency can provide synergistic reinforcement of the sustainability transformation required;
• Examples of reflection and dialogue as well as creativity and the arts as pedagogies and skills for sustainability leaders;
• Added evidence that learning can be a key leverage point for sustainability transformations by presenting outcomes and impacts of sustainability education programs where students attempted to make change in their work or world through creativity projects;
• Outcomes and impacts of an organisation change program within a local government which used education to empower sustainability leaders who then themselves created sustainability outcomes and impacts;
• Identified challenges of education for sustainability leadership from the perspective of students, learning designers and facilitators of the studied education programs.
• Challenges within sustainability education more broadly are also presented.

With those outcomes, the thesis contributes to the body of knowledge concerned with building capacity of human beings to facilitate strategic sustainable development work. 

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.