Competencies of Sustainability Professionals: An Empirical Study on Key Competencies for Sustainability

• Main Authors: Perez, P. (Author), Vandenbussche, V. (Author), Venn, R. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI 2022
• Subjects: higher education; human resource management; key competencies; lived experience; practitioners; professionals; sustainability; sustainable development; transformation
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 This paper presents an empirical study on key competencies for sustainable development. Over a period of two years, we collected empirical data on competencies of senior sustainability professionals by using an action research approach. Data collection took place in Belgium Flanders via an elaborate iterative action-reflection process including an interactive workshop, interviews, and an online survey. Our analysis provides strong empirical evidence for the existence of two complemen-tary competency clusters, namely sustainability research competencies and sustainability intervention competencies. Together they enable the profound analysis and understanding of sustainability issues and ensure the ability to devise solutions and foster change towards sustainability. Furthermore, we shed a first light on the interaction of these competency clusters and their link with the practitioners’ topical knowledge and lived experience. This study bridges the divergence in literature between theoretically and empirically driven research and offers novel insights on sustainability competencies for the fields of sustainability science, human resource management, and higher education. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.