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PurposeThe aim of this paper is to contribute to aligning higher education towards meeting the challenge of global sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe barriers to sustainability are juxtaposed against the resources, responsibilities and potential of higher education. Ideas from several models and from within several disciplines are integrated to construct a framework through the challenges can be examined and then translated into learning outcomes, expressed as graduate attributes.FindingsThe focus of education for global sustainability has been on encouraging consumers to modify patterns of resource consumption and waste management. However, there are some significant limitations to relying on consumer action. Future professionals, involved in managing resources or designing options from which consumers make choices, are in a much better position for influencing how social, cultural and environmental resources are used. To actualise this potential requires that higher education curricula offer experiences which develop graduate attributes of self‐efficacy, capacity for effective advocacy and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as raise awareness of social and moral responsibilities associated with professional practice.Research limitations/implicationsFor higher education to contribute towards achieving sustainability requires support of the whole institution, and considerable professional development of staff to help them appreciate how they can lead the next generation to global sustainability. The next stage of the research into the role of higher education in building a sustainable society should focus on how these objectives can be achieved.Originality/valueConsiderable research has been dedicated to describing the urgent and intractable nature of the problems facing the global community and, to some extent, the need for higher education to engage with these problems. This paper takes the next step by presenting some guidelines for designing curricula to develop graduate attributes required for this work.

In November 2010, the areas of practice known as community psychology and health psychology were endorsed by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council (AHWMC). This was a major reversal of the Council's earlier decision in April that year to limit the endorsed areas of practice to those represented by the other seven Colleges of the Australian Psychological Society. This paper describes the intense lobbying effort coordinated by the National Committee of the Australian Psychological Society College of Community Psychologists and their supporters, which was sustained over many months and led ultimately to a changed decision by the Australian Health Ministers. The story is important for community psychology as it demonstrates the power of collective, integrated and focussed political lobbying, in this case to promote and to inform others of the key contributions of community psychology to health policy, illness prevention and primary care. Without endorsement there would be little incentive for universities to offer postgraduate programs in Community Psychology, which would then choke the only pathway to future membership of the College, rendering it unviable. With no further training offered, and eventually no representative body within the APS, there would be direct implications for the sustainability of the whole discipline and practice of community psychology in Australia.