This book is entirely newly written, although it bears the title of its predecessors from 2005 onwards: in English Fundamentals of Sustainable Development, in Dutch Basisboek Duurzame Ontwikkeling, and in German Grundlagen der nachhaltigen Entwicklung. The previous editions were updated every five years, which was always much needed, because the world is developing fast. But after 20 years, such an update is no longer good enough; too much has happened in the meantime.
2003: Inventing the wheel
I started working on the first edition in 2003, when I travelled around dozens of universities and colleges of higher education as a consultant on behalf of the Stichting Duurzaam Hoger Onderwijs, the Dutch Foundation for Sustainable Higher Education. Everywhere I went, lecturers, managers and administrators asked me: What exactly is sustainable development; why should we do something with it in our education? And also: Isn't there a textbook that clearly explains everything? There was no such book, I concluded after careful research, at least not in English, German or Dutch. And so I started writing it. I had no examples, I had to 'invent the wheel’ all by myself, but fortunately I had the support and advice of more than a hundred and twenty experts, teachers, students, administrators and representatives of civil society organisations.
Now, in 2025, I no longer get such questions, because everything is different. In two decades, sustainability has deeply penetrated the roots of society, and that is a good thing. Courses without sustainability are hard to find anymore: universities and higher and secondary vocational education have taken their social mission seriously, as have companies, governments and media. Many of them use the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, as their guideline. When the first three editions of my textbook were written, they did not even exist; in this new edition, they take a leading role. A less favourable development is that climate change, natural degradation and other forms of deterioration, already described in the first edition in 2005, have now become fully visible and are increasingly severe.
RESFIA+D: Competences for Sustainable Development
I myself have also continued to develop in the meantime. In 2010, I obtained my PhD with a doctoral thesis on the combination of sustainability, higher education and organisational development. Afterwards, I did more research, developed new management and teaching methods and published books and articles, including a model for competences of sustainable professionals: RESFIA+D. In the new book, the model plays an important role: almost every chapter features topics that call for certain competences of professionals. In such places, alongside the text, the relevant competence is shown by means of a QR code with a special layout, like the one pictured here. The concluding chapter describes RESFIA+D in detail and allows readers to examine their own sustainability competences.
The textbook: source of science. Bibliography: also available online.
In the course of the past 20 years, it turned out that the book, especially the English editions, is used not only as a textbook in education but, in addition, increasingly as literature for academic research and publications in more than 50 countries. In connection with this, the book refers to a sizeable number of literature sources. In the current edition, the List of References is not only available in the book itself, but also online, which is very useful as it contains close to a thousand hyperlinks.
A new narrative
Through these and other new books and articles I wrote in the meantime, plus the feedback I received on my textbook for years, my ideas as an author about what makes a good textbook also evolved. When the various publishers asked me for a new edition in 2022, it was immediately clear that the usual update would not be good enough this time. The narrative had to be rewritten from cover to cover. That was a big job, and so in 2022 I started with an exploration and a first draft, from which the current book emerged three years later. Over the course of those three years, even up to the last minute, current developments were tracked and the book is up-to-date.
New in this edition
Whereas the previous editions placed a relatively strong emphasis on the Netherlands, for instance in the choice of cases, the new book, which is again published in three languages and used all over the world, is now completely international. Of course, the Netherlands occasionally features in it, as do numerous other countries.
As mentioned, the number of literature sources has increased considerably, which has become all the more important in these days of 'alternative facts'. Explicit attention is paid to the value of scientific evidence.
As a counterpart, more attention is also paid to readers' perceptions and emotions than before. Opportunities and threats are discussed. The book addresses fear: there are so many bad news reports, will we survive? And it deals with hope and energy: what can I do to tackle the problems?
Philosophical topics are also getting more space. The advent of the Anthropocene raises questions such as: what is the position of humans in today's world; what can, may or should we as humans do or not do? Who are we? The discussions about these in this book not only contribute to knowledge and understanding about sustainable development, but also help the reader to develop a personal vision in a rapidly evolving world, and to contribute to that evolution in a balanced and inspired way: as a human and as a professional.