Empowering Changemakers of Tomorrow: Building Sustainability and Entrepreneurship Competences Through Enactus Social Impact Programme to Advance the 2030 Agenda

Addressing the complex challenges of the 2030 Agenda requires innovative solutions, an entrepreneurial mindset, sustainable practices and individuals committed to driving meaningful change. This chapter explores the transformative impact of the Enactus programme, a global student-led initiative that integrates action-based experiential learning with social innovation as a means of delivering Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It is aligned with UN SDG 4 that emphasises the importance of inclusive and equitable quality education, lifelong learning opportunities and enhancement of knowledge and skills to promote sustainable development relevant for employment, entrepreneurship and society. Within this context, higher education institutions (HEIs) are mandated to meet these objectives through ESD which also encompasses global citizenship education. Our research is positioned at the intersection of entrepreneurship education and ESD, highlighting the synergies between these fields. This approach develops the essential competences empowering learners to make interlinkages between the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development and foster positive change through inclusive, circular and regenerative solutions. By critically examining the Enactus programme and reflecting on our experiences of facilitating it at our HEIs, we uncover how it contributes to SDG 4 and more broadly to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In doing so, we also consider how the Enactus programme contributes to developing students’ sustainability and entrepreneurial competences, empowering them to become the entrepreneurial leaders and the changemakers of tomorrow.