Conference Agenda

This paper presents a review of how the economic dimension has been conceptualised in environment and sustainability education research spanning 25 years.

During the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, it was established that sustainable development comprises three interdependent and mutually reinforcing dimensions: economic, social and environmental. However, how to conceptualise the economic dimension was discussed as inherently conflictual. While economic growth was described as a prerequisite for development, it was also stated that no country can achieve it if the environment is deteriorating, wealth is not distributed fairly, and human capital is not growing. The three dimensions of sustainable development were integrated into curricula worldwide during the UNESCO decade 2005—2014, followed by the UNESCO Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development (2014), which was aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN (2015-2030), of which SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 12 (responsible production and consumption) relate to the economic dimension.

At the same time, two separate fields of research (PRME and REE), with a shared interest in reforming education with economics and sustainability as subject matter, have evolved.

Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) was officially introduced by the UN Global Compact at the Global Forum "Business as an Agent of World Benefit" in 2006, and the first set of principles was published in 2007, facilitated by representatives of leading business schools and academic institutions. The principles include: (1) prosperity in a world of thriving ecosystems, (2) responsibility and accountability to society and the planet, and (3) transforming learning environments by integrating responsible management concepts and practices into the curriculum, pedagogy and research. PRME research is now a well-established field, and the economic dimension of sustainability is also described as inherently conflictual (Kurucz et al 2014, Painter-Morland 2015, Parker 2018).

Parallel to the above initiative, an international student movement calling for the need to rethink economics education was formed (https://rethinkeconomics.org). The movement’s origins can be traced to the 2008 financial crisis (Earle et al 2016), which was preceded by “The Stern review - the economics of climate change” and Al Gore’s film “An inconvenient truth”. The movement has since grown into a global movement of students in economics and academics, under the umbrella term pluralist and heterodox economists, pushing for the need to rethink and reform economics education (Rethinking Economics Education, REE). A key issue for this movement concerns how economics education can better equip students for sustainability issues (Fischer 2017, Muijnck 2021), aligning with longstanding critiques from scholars across different strands of economics, notably ecological economics, who argue that economics education needs fundamentally new ways of teaching, using models that embed the economy within society and within the biosphere (Spash 2024).

In the research field of Environment and Sustainability Education (ESE), the economic dimension has been described as challenging, difficult and contradictory (Berglund & Gericke 2016, Borg et al. 2014, Kopnina et al 2025, Öhman & Öhman 2012, Noguera-Méndez & Cifuentes-Faura 2023, Singh, A. S., & Segatto, A. P. 2020). However, there is limited knowledge about how the economic dimension of sustainable development has been addressed in general and to what extent alternative perspectives developed within PRME and REE research have been considered.

With this background, the purpose of this paper is to present a review spanning 25 years of conceptualising the economic dimension in ESE research, identify research gaps, and suggest routes for future ESE research. This overarching purpose is further specified in the analytical questions presented in the methodology section below.

The aim of this presentation is to introduce the idea that one of the central tasks of ESE teaching – and of education as such – should be a process we designate as mundification (Ziethen and Paulsen 2025b). This concept has emerged through critical dialogue with, among others, Biesta, particularly his tripartite account of the purposes of schooling – qualification, socialization, and subjectification (2010).

Mundification can be understood with reference to Heidegger’s concept of the understanding of Being, that is, the basic understanding of what it means for beings to be (1927/1986). Heidegger argues that at any historical moment, there is a dominant understanding of Being that shapes how humans understand the world they inhabit. This understanding changes over time. For example, there is a profound difference between understanding beings as expressions of divine intention and understanding them as outcomes of natural processes.

Heidegger (1954) characterizes modernity’s understanding of Being as technological. This does not mean that humans literally see everything as machines, but rather that beings – including humans – are predominantly understood as resources to be used at human choice. While modern humans may still experience beings non-technologically, the technological understanding of Being remains dominant and shapes institutions, culture, and practices.

Building on Heidegger, we argue that modern humans live within what we term a scenic-humanist understanding of the world (Paulsen and Ziethen 2024; Ziethen and Paulsen 2025a, 2025b). Here, humans are the protagonists, while other beings serve primarily as props on the stage of human life. At the same time, an alternative understanding is (re)emerging today, in the Anthropocene, given the crisis of modern world-understanding, namely one in which beings are approached as entities with whom humans can enter into dialogue, care for, and attend to. We refer to this emergent understanding as dialogic-zoëlogic.

This leads to our discussion of mundification in relation to Biesta’s framework. Biesta (2021) suggests that schools need not concern themselves with which understanding of the world students encounter – only that they are centered toward the surrounding world. We argue the opposite: the specific world students are invited into is crucial for qualifications, norms, and subjectification. The range of subjectification, norms, and qualifications shifts almost entirely when moving from a scenic-humanistic to a dialogic-zoëlogic world. It is neither the same world nor the same human being, which has crucial consequences for ESE teaching.

Accordingly, a scenic-humanistic approach to sustainability invites students into a world understood as a fragile pile of limited resources, calling for humans who manage, reduce, and restrain use, pollution, and emissions. This fosters a quantitative, negative understanding of sustainability: whoever you want to be, become a person who uses less, a less-of-the-same society (cf. Reckwitz 2024). In contrast, a dialogic-zoëlogic approach invites students into a world of co-beings with whom one can enter communicative relations, learn with and from, and cultivate care and attentiveness. This fosters a qualitative and positive understanding: whoever you want to be, become a life-friendly co-being, a different-life-society. In both cases, sustainability is inseparable from mundification.

In sum, mundification emphasizes the pedagogical responsibility of shaping how humans understand the world. Education is not only about skills, norms, or subjectivity, but first of all about which world students are invited into or not. This raises two central didactical ESE questions: 1) How can educational practices invite students not only into the dominant scenic-humanist world, but also, and first of all, into a dialogic-zoëlogic world? 2) How can such a shift become imaginable, desirable, and reachable when one stands predominantly within a scenic-humanist world?

This paper examines how the concept of potentiality can revitalize ecopedagogy. While Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) often emphasizes instrumental competencies, ecopedagogy requires a stronger philosophical foundation—one that I argue can be found in the dialectical tradition. The central research question is: How can a dialectical understanding of potentiality—from Aristotle through Hegel to Bookchin’s social ecology—form the basis of an ecopedagogy that cultivates both critical awareness and transformative agency?

The theoretical framework integrates three philosophical traditions: (1) Aristotle’s concepts of dynamis and energeia, which ground potentiality in the inherent nature of things rather than external imposition; (2) Hegel’s dialectical method, which conceives potentiality as a historically unfolding process; and (3) Murray Bookchin’s dialectical naturalism, which extends the notion of potentiality to encompass both human societies and natural ecosystems. Together, these perspectives articulate a non-reductionist holism that ecopedagogy needs.