I will be offering a seminar on this topic at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences during the winter semester 2026/27. Below is the course description.
Sustainability is more than just “climate, green, and organic.” It stands for a good life that does not come at the expense of others, and for resilience in times of multiple crises, including climate change, democracy, and social justice. While economic and intellectual “monocultures” increase the vulnerability of systems to crises, cultural diversity and the capacity to learn are essential prerequisites for sustainability. Cultures function as the “mental blueprint of society” and differ, according to Geert Hofstede, in the ways people are collectively shaped.
This seminar adopts a critical perspective on Western “high culture,” science, and education, asking what kind of social development they have contributed to so far. People with “more” formal education do not necessarily act more sustainably than Indigenous communities with “less” or no such education. For sustainability, it is therefore crucial not only how much education we have, but what kind of education.
If “modern” societies leave a disproportionately large ecological footprint, then Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is not enough when understood merely as a form of “mental modernization.” What is also needed is a different kind of education.
This education does not arise solely in the classroom. It emerges in real-life environments: through living laboratories, experimental spaces for alternatives, and educational institutions functioning as an “expanded agora.” Even the streets can become places of learning, where people discover how peaceful coexistence in diversity can succeed on a finite planet. Examples will be presented, discussed collectively, and, wherever possible, explored in practice.
© Dr. Davide Brocchi
Cologne, September 8, 2026
