Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a term used to encompass the range of interventions that enable learners to develop an awareness of sustainability practices and sustainable development. It is an important part of education for learners to consider a wide range of issues and debates around sustainability and can contribute to problem solving abilities and metacognition. There is an important distinction between ESD and climate education, whilst there is an interaction between these two concepts, ESD goes further than climate education to consider the impact of the economy and society on matters of sustainable development.

It is important to consider ESD as a process of developing behaviour principles and attitude changes rather than an information accumulation process (Summers, et al., 2000). ESD should be seen as the implementation of the learning intervention and the most effective way of designing activities that ignite curiosity in learners to develop further interests in sustainable development.