The relationship between education and sustainable development has come a long way since first recognised on an international level at the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment in 1972. Today universities worldwide acknowledge the critical role of education in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) laid out in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To achieve the SDGs by 2030, in 2019 the UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a Decade of Action. However, three years in, the implementation of sustainable development in university curricula has been delayed by the global pandemic, economic uncertainties, and international conflict. This paper argues that educators in art and design must refocus on progressing curriculum towards addressing and problematizing the United Nation’s SDGs. The paper provides an overview of key pivots in the organisation’s historical evolution of education for sustainable development, describes important work that complicates the United Nations’ agenda and recommends curriculum considerations when facilitating students to engage with SDGs and the call to action for just and equitable societies for all people and the planet.
