Teaching about matters related to sustainable development requires not only a personal motivation from educators, but also a variety of competences. This paper reports on a multicountry study, which aimed at identifying the level of importance given to desired competences on sustainable development by teaching staff at a number of higher education institutions. On the basis of the findings, the paper identifies the gaps and outlines some of the needs which should be addressed, via which competence building may help to foster the educational and societal transformation towards sustainability. The implications of this paper are two-fold. Firstly, it emphasises the value of and the need for competences on sustainable development. Secondly, it illustrates some of the needs which should be met in order to provide a framework among which competences on sustainable development may be further developed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.