The UN 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) envisions a future of inclusive equity, justice and prosperity within environmental limits, and places an important emphasis on education as stated in Goal 4. Education is acknowledged as a means for achieving the remaining Goals, with sustainability as a goal for education in target 4.7. However, the interconnectedness of the SDGs and the complexity of sustainability as a concept make it difficult to relate the SDGs to educational learning outcomes, with what Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims to
achieve, left in ambiguity.

Using systems thinking, we developed a framework that redefines ESD as a tool that can deliver the transformation required for society to reach a sustainable state. Using the SDGs as end points for this state, and through a participatory approach, education stakeholders and learners work together to construct a common vision of sustainability, identify the competences needed, and develop appropriate pedagogies and learning strategies. The framework allows for the
development of evaluation tools that can support educational institutions to monitor and manage their progress in transforming societies towards sustainability.

In this work, the aim of the authors was to redefine the role of ESD in the era of the SDGs from a systems perspective. Therefore, education’s transformative potential to facilitate the transition to sustainability was recognised. We developed a participatory framework that allows education practitioners and stakeholders together with communities of learners to decide on common visions for sustainability.

Although the SDGs are a global framework, localising them in terms of educational outcomes helps the realisation of both community vision and of global priorities. Constructing a common vision of sustainability guided by the SDGs, can help educators and learners identify constraints and enabling conditions, work together to select the competences needed, develop appropriate curricula and pedagogies, pursue the many facets of a whole-institution approach and evaluate progress towards sustainability as a well-defined goal. The proposed framework oers the opportunity of rethinking education as a systemic tool for transformative social change.

Nelson Mandela stated in 2003, that “education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world” [101], and today the need for the world to change is more urgent and greater than ever. The road to sustainability is paved by education, and unless we invest on it, we might never get there.