Sustainable development, Education for Sustainable Development, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Emergence, efficacy, eminence, and future

AbstractThis paper aims to present a narrative of the outcome of an extensive historical literature review of global policy development and processes concerning the emergence, efficacy, and eminence of sustainable development, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]) inception to date. It starts by presenting the emergence, efficacy, and eminence of the concept and term “sustainable development” (which is integral to ESD) in terms of its historical definition, dimensions, understanding, interpretations, and challenges. It also highlights the take‐up of sustainable development in terms of green growth, human development, and human agency. It then presents an overview of ESD, accompanied by a discussion of its key characteristics, approaches, and significances. The paper then highlights a semantic analysis of the development of ESD, with a special focus on some converging processes, events, concepts, discourses, and declarations that have supported the rise of ESD and shaped its status to date. Considerable emphasis is placed on the significance and nexus between environmental education and ESD. The paper analyses the crucial interconnection between education, sustainable development, ESD, the SDGs, and human development. Furthermore, the paper discusses the centrality of ESD to the global education discourse and the nexus, role, and relevance of education and particularly ESD in relation to the achievement of all the SDGs. The paper concludes by critically reflecting on the above, vis‐à‐vis the author's previous empirical research on higher ESD, making recommendations on the future of ESD research and practice.