Spirits of ecological thinking

The main focus of this article is to discern the ontological meaning of concepts related to sustainability. This fits within Linda Starke’s (1990) “hopeful signs” about the need for new ways of thinking about our common future instead of merely continuing with concrete policy changes within the accustomed mode of thinking. The article aims to prevent sustainability from being encapsulated within a prearranged framework. The popularization of sustainability within the corporate sector and education sustainability is mainly being perceived as a goal, as an end. An end for which one is searching for the right processes, the best tools to reach that goal. What was once a marginal concept has been captured by the dominant way of thinking which is based on a top-down approach to management and hence sustainability where system and environment are identified as being separate. By tracing the tensions within this approach and investigating a process of creating meaning in action shows how the division between system and environment is problematic. Instead, an argument is offered for openness, inclusion, tolerance, difference, reflection to be the guiding principles of education for sustainable development.