Purpose This paper aims to increase related knowledge across personal, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability and how it can be applied to support transformative learning. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides a reflexive case study of the design, content and impact of a course on eco-justice that integrates relational learning with an equity and justice lens. The reflexive case study provides a critical, exploratory self-assessment, including interviews, group discussions and surveys with key stakeholders and course participants. Findings The results show how relational approaches can support transformative learning for sustainability and provide concrete practices, pathways and recommendations for curricula development that other universities/training institutions could follow or learn from. Originality/value Sustainability research, practice and education generally focuses on structural or systemic factors of transformation (e.g. technology, governance and policy) without due consideration as to how institutions and systems are shaping and shaped by the transformation of personal agency and subjectivity. This presents a vast untapped and under-studied potential for addressing deep leverage points for change by using a relational approach to link personal, societal and ecological transformations for sustainability.

Compassion—the awareness of and motivation to increase care and reduce suffering—is an ethical orientation that encompasses emotions and thoughts. A growing body of evidence indicates that compassion can be intentionally cultivated, with potentially transformative impacts at the individual, organizational, and process levels. We examine the applicability of compassion for planning, particularly for transforming strongly held values and norms that contribute to seemingly intractable challenges. We identify four categories of planning work in which compassion cultivation can be undertaken and four directions for future research on the application of compassion in planning practice and education.

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Various conceptions of compassion are articulated in diverse Buddhist contemplative traditions. These variations are due in part to the divergent models of mind and reality found within and across these traditions, as well as the ways in which compassion is understood to be either supportive or necessary for spiritual development or awakening. These diverse Buddhist models in particular have influenced the development modern, secular mindfulness- and compassion-based contemplative programs that have been selected for scientific study. In spite of growing interest from the scientific community in these compassion-based contemplative programs, there is little discussion of the differences between diverse contemplative and scientific accounts of compassion, and the implications of these differences for research. This chapter therefore offers an overview of the ways in which compassion is variously conceptualized in diverse Buddhist and scientific traditions.

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