Education, Public Engagement and the Sustainability Transition

The sustainability transition — the shift from an economy dependent on fossil fuels, linear material flows, and ecological degradation toward one grounded in renewable energy, circular materials, and ecosystem health — is fundamentally a social and educational project as much as a technological one. Technical solutions exist or are within reach for most of the environmental challenges documented in this volume. What constrains their adoption is not science but human behaviour, institutional inertia, political economy, and the social norms that shape how billions of individuals, organisations, and governments make decisions about energy, consumption, land use, and investment. This chapter examines the mechanisms through which education and public engagement can accelerate the sustainability transition. It covers Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as a global policy framework and its implementation across levels from primary school through university; green chemistry education as a discipline-specific model for integrating sustainability into professional training; environmental science communication and the psychology of effective public engagement; citizen science as a mechanism for democratizing environmental knowledge production; the role of social media and digital platforms in environmental communication; and the challenge of behaviour change at individual and collective scales. Case studies from multiple countries and educational contexts illustrate both the potential and the limitations of education-led sustainability action. The chapter situates these educational and communicative dimensions within the broader governance frameworks of Chapters 27 and 28, emphasising that education is not a substitute for structural policy change but its essential complement.