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Policies and sustainability leaders at many universities guide teachers to understand why sustainability is taught and what to teach regarding sustainability. However, knowing how to conduct sustainability education faces challenges. Firstly, the transformation of the teacher's role to become a facilitator and co-creator in the learning experience involves new practices in higher education. Secondly, restraints from disciplinary norms deprive lecturers of the support they need to facilitate sustainability education. Instead, teachers need collaborative transdisciplinary inspiration and creative support to transform sustainability education. The purpose of this chapter is to conceptualise how to support student-centred learning to build capacity in sustainability competence through a co-created transdisciplinary approach. Drawing data from an action research project involving students and teachers, the chapter shows that partners can collaborate to inspire, and learning can be enhanced by partnership with organisations that can provide real-life sustainability challenges.

Purpose: While universities increasingly integrate sustainability content into curricula, guidance on how to teach sustainability remains limited. The purpose of this study is to introduce the Sustainability Competence Mindset Map (SCMM), a formative questionnaire designed to assess key sustainability competencies (KSCs) and enhance both teaching and learning experiences. This study also provides the first empirical test of the KSC framework within a business school context, supporting transitions towards sustainable futures.

Design: Students from eight courses across four academic levels participated over one year. This study conducted validity and reliability tests, along with a structural equation model for confirmatory factor analysis. Teachers also shared reflections on using the SCMM tool in their courses.FindingsThe SCMM demonstrated strong validity and reliability, and confirmatory factor analysis results supported the KSC framework. Teachers reported that the tool helped apply sustainability concepts practically and facilitated communication with students. It can be integrated with various course activities and supports a shared language around sustainability.

Originality: This study contributes to theory and practice by offering a validated tool to facilitate sustainability competence capacity building. This study supports the KSC framework and competency-based education and enables tailored teaching strategies that improve student engagement and learning outcomes. The SCMM also fosters staff development, peer learning and provides measurable data for institutional monitoring, policy development and accreditation aligned with global goals, such as the UN SDG 4.7. By institutionalising its use, universities can ensure consistent and impactful integration of sustainability education across disciplines.

Sustainability capacity building challenges educators to develop diverse sustainability competences by working on an interdisciplinary scale. Frustrations and possibilities can both be experienced when applying sustainability education across disciplines in higher education. A sustainability didactic approach can be effective in providing much needed support for educators to reflect on what, how and why they teach through a sustainability mindset. In this chapter, we set out to ask how educators experience sustainability competence capacity building within an interdisciplinary environment? Using the Galtung double-variable method of futuring, this participatory research project, provided such an experience for educators, coming from nine disciplines across sixteen different European universities. Educators reflected on how sustainability education needs to transform in order to provide sustainability competence capacity building in students. Participants reflected on their own sustainability competency capacity building being activated throughout the event and how they can effectively implement their learning initiatives created through this interdisciplinary collaborative environment. The study finds that academic training through immersive experiential learning and the futuring method creates space for imaging a sustainability education students need for interdisciplinary thinking. Creating space for immersive activities can help educators to positively unpack frustrations experienced in higher education and activate the skills required to experiment and innovate in sustainability education.

This book aims to provide a comprehensive guide to understanding and implementing the competencies required for sustainable development. In recent years, the need for sustainable development has become increasingly evident across various sectors globally. Climate change, resource depletion, and social inequalities pose significant challenges that demand urgent and comprehensive action. The concept of sustainable development is not merely an environmental concern; it encompasses economic, social, and governance dimensions, necessitating a holistic approach to address these interlinked issues effectively. It seeks to bridge the gap between theoretical frameworks and practical applications, offering insights that are relevant to policymakers, educators, business leaders, and individuals committed to sustainability. The genesis of this book lies in the recognition that achieving sustainable development is contingent upon building and enhancing competencies at multiple levels—individual, organizational, and societal. Competence in sustainable development involves a combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that empower individuals and organizations to contribute effectively to sustainable goals. One of the key strengths of this book is its multidisciplinary approach. Sustainable development is inherently interdisciplinary, requiring insights from environmental science, economics, social sciences, and management studies. The contributors to this book bring diverse perspectives and expertise, ensuring a rich and nuanced exploration of the subject matter. Furthermore, this book emphasizes the importance of education and training in building competencies for sustainable development. It discusses innovative educational approaches, curricula development, and the role of institutions in fostering a culture of sustainability. The role of technology and digital tools in enhancing sustainable practices is also highlighted, recognizing their potential to drive significant positive change.

Background: The European sustainability competence framework (GreenComp) lacks clearly defined learning outcomes, hindering its effective implementation and assessment. This paper addresses this critical gap by developing measurable learning outcomes within the OpenPass4Climate project.

Methods: A structured approach involving co-design among educational stakeholders, expert validation using a modified Delphi method, and comprehensive coverage analysis was employed. This iterative process led to the development of 40 learning outcomes aligned with GreenComp’s four competence areas. These outcomes were formulated to be observable, measurable, and assessable.

Results: The process successfully yielded 40 learning outcomes, providing concrete, actionable targets that operationalize GreenComp’s theoretical framework into practical educational tools. This developed framework facilitates the recognition of sustainability competencies through Open Badges and supports the integration of sustainability education across formal, non-formal, and informal learning contexts.

Conclusions: This work contributes to advancing Education for Sustainable Development. However, challenges persist in ensuring universal applicability, balancing standardization with contextual adaptation, and maintaining the holistic nature of sustainability within micro-credentialing systems.

Business education has been criticised for overlooking social values despite the critical role that social values play in promoting sustainable development (SD) and equipping future business leaders to tackle global challenges. Against this background, this paper examines the incorporation of social values and SD into business education. The study employs a mixed-methods approach including a bibliometric analysis of 637 publications and an analysis of 15 international case studies. The findings indicate significant progress in incorporating social values such as fairness, justice, accountability, and responsibility into business education. Nevertheless, there is still a significant amount of uncertainty regarding the integration of these values across institutions. The case studies, in particular, elucidate prevalent challenges, providing educators and policymakers with actionable insights. Ultimately, this study contributes to the development of business leaders who can promote positive social and environmental change by emphasizing the critical role of social values and SD in business education and providing evidence-based recommendations to improve their integration.

This study examines the association between audit team competence and individual auditor motivation with audit quality threatening behaviours (AQTBs). The eight AQTB can influence audit quality and audit errors. Determinants of auditor behaviour are thus considered important. Practising audit teams at a Big-4 audit firm took part in a questionnaire survey to provide their perceptions of their team experience on one specific engagement. The analysis shows that team competence and individual intrinsic motivation are negatively related to AQTB, while extrinsic motivation is positively related to AQTBs. Also, individual intrinsic and extrinsic motivations moderate the relationship between team competence and AQTB. Thus, individual auditors can influence the team's AQTB depending on their motivation, which indicates that interventions can decrease AQTB. Contributions include evidence about audit competence at a team level (team competence) and individual motivation, determinants that are of concern to regulators, clients, and audit firms.

This paper uses unique survey data from a Swedish Big 4 firm to examine the association between audit quality threatening behavior (AQTB) and two types of distance between team members in audit teams (i.e., audit team distance): subjective distance as the perception of proximity, and communication distance as the percentage of communication via technology. Investigating the factors influencing AQTB is important because AQTB adversely affects audit quality. The results show that team members with greater subjective and communication distance engage in more AQTB, which suggests that audit firms should pay attention to team members' subjective and communication distances and take actions to curb their negative impacts. Using rich data collected from real-world audit team experience, this study deepens our understanding of how different types of audit team distance impact auditors' AQTB.

This paper investigates the audit team outcomes of team diversity. Diversity theory suggests that diversity can benefit a team's work quality if the variety of team characteristics improves decision-making and performance. However, team diversity can have harmful affective outcomes if team members separate into different categories, and thus they feel stressed, intend to leave the profession or experience conflict between team members. We investigated this paradox in team diversity in an audit context at a Big 4 audit firm in Sweden, which provided proprietary team data. In addition, 335 individuals from 185 different audit teams responded to a questionnaire. Each participant responded to a survey about their experience with one specific engagement. Results indicated that team diversity benefits the audit team's affective outcomes of role stress, satisfaction and turnover intentions. However, diverse teams also reduce some audit teams' work quality outcomes, such as dysfunctional behaviour, performance, effort and perceptions of audit quality.