Pathways to Action Competence for Sustainability—Six Themes

Hope in the Face of Climate Change: Associations With Environmental Engagement and Student Perceptions of Teachers’ Emotion Communication Style and Future Orientation

“…This implies an educational model that is participatory and democratic, and proponents of the action competence approach criticize educational models aiming at behavioral modification. Instead, this approach aims at strengthening abilities to deal in an active and constructive way with knowledge that is incomplete (see also Almers, 2013). Jensen and Schnack (1997) divide the concept of action competence into four different components: besides focusing on knowledge/insight about the problems and giving the 5 students action experiences, they also include agency and motivation as well as working with visions of the future as important aspects of this educational approach.…”

What Kind of Actions are Appropriate? Eco-School Teachers' and Instructors' Ranking of Sustainability- Promoting Actions as Content in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

“…However, to work with actions from an action competence perspective means not just doing different things, it also involves explicitly stimulating students to participate in debates, to strive for "insights into the social and structural problems and the conflicts of interest that underlie all environmental problems" (Lundegård & Wickman, 2007). To get students to experience actions as meaningful and not just do them, to make them see the web of social structures in which the actions are embedded, as well as causes and effects in a history-future time scale, may contribute to creating an environment in which young people are able to criticise and break with the predominant social norms (Almers & Wickenberg, 2008), and to sustain these actions in the longer term (Almers, 2013). On the other hand, Short (2009) discusses the advantages, from a teacher's perspective, of concentrating on promoting individual actions in the personal sphere concluding that they are noncontroversial and safe, whereas mobilising students in the public sphere may be experienced as controversial and potentially rife with uncertainty.…”

Sustainability and CSR orientation through “Edutainment” in tourism

“…Several SBMs archetypes have been categorized to develop a common language useful to accelerate the development of SBMs in research and practice. Among these, we can mention the following: maximize material and energy efficiency; create value from 'waste'; substitute polluting processes with renewable and natural processes; adopt a stewardship role in managing the business; repurpose the business for society and environment; and develop scale-up solutions and sustainable innovations Bocken et al 2014;Almers 2013).…”