This paper investigates the concept of sustainable development (SD) (a) in international policy documents which shaped education for sustainable development (ESD), (b) in the academic discourse in the field of ESD and (c) in the views of students and teachers. The above stakeholders influence one another and eventually, ESD practice. The purpose of this paper is to propose implications in ESD practice and research. This paper adopts a holistic approach to SD, meaning that SD is considered as an integrated concept of three pillars: environment, economy and society (Giddings et al. 2002). Accordingly, ESD addresses sustainable development issues, which are not only environmental problems but also social and economic ones (e.g. Corney and Reid 2007).

۲ The SD concept in international policy documents The 1987 Brundtland report, titled ‘Our Common Future’, officially introduced the idea of sustainable development and acknowledged the interconnection of ecological, economic and social systems (Evans 2010). While the Belgrade and the Tbilisi reports refer to ‘environment’ only, Agenda 21 speaks of ‘environment and development’ (Gough 1997), thus moving closer towards social and economic issues (Stevenson 2006). Although social and economic issues were also mentioned in the prior documents, they were not emphasized (Stevenson 2006). Agenda 21 (UN 1992, p. 320) makes it explicit that in order to be effective, environmental education and development education should deal with all aspects of our environment, that is, the ecological and physical/biological environment as well as the socio-economic one. As Evans states (2010, p. 44) ‘Agenda 21 was a blueprint for sustainable development’. The Declaration of Thessaloniki in 1997 was an attempt towards the implementation of Agenda 21. The Johannesburg Summit in 2002 reaffirmed that the three dimensions of SD must form the content of sustainable learning (Roorda 2010). The Johannesburg Declaration underlines that ‘the interdependent and mutually reinforcing’ pillars of SD should be strengthened (UN 2002, para 5). The next passage in the Johannesburg Declaration (para 8) trails the journey of Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER), as it has come to be called nowadays, from Stockholm to Rio and from Rio to Johannesburg. In Stockholm, back in 1997, the matter of concern was environmental degradation, whereas in Rio, the focus of the discussion lays not only on the protection of the environment, but also on social and economic development, which are seen as the fundaments of SD. This represents a more integrated view of SD, since it does not limit its scope, but it refers to SD as a whole.