Challenges and opportunities for leveraging generative AI for sustainability education: a critical review

Mbah, MF, Nugraha, TR and Kushnir, I ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0727-7208, 2025. Challenges and opportunities for leveraging generative AI for sustainability education: a critical review. Sustainability, 17 (23): 10623. ISSN 2071-1050

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Abstract

The integration of generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) into sustainability education is justified by its potential to introduce sustainability perspectives through transformative learning. By encouraging individuals to critically reflect and challenge their prior beliefs and assumptions, Gen-AI can deepen their understanding of sustainability concepts and inspire long-term commitment to sustainable practices. While the broader educational potential of Gen-AI has been widely explored, previous research tends to overlook its specific benefits and implications within the context of sustainability education. This paper addresses this gap by exploring both the opportunities and challenges of employing Gen-AI in the context of sustainability education through a critical review of diverse outputs. A thematic analysis of the outputs reveals a complex interplay between the opportunities and challenges. While Gen-AI offers access to information, personalised learning, fosters creativity, and decision-making support, the associated challenges, such as unequal access, overreliance on use, unreliable outputs, and environmental cost, may undermine the opportunities and the broader efforts to foster sustainability. The originality of this paper lies in providing critical insights for institutions, educators, and policymakers seeking to harness generative AI to advance sustainability education, an area pivotal to the pursuit of a just and sustainable future.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Sustainability
Creators:	Mbah, M.F., Nugraha, T.R. and Kushnir, I.
Publisher:	MDPI
Date:	December 2025
Volume:	17
Number:	23
ISSN:	2071-1050
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3390/su172310623 DOI 2539493 Other
Rights:	© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Institute of Education
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	28 Nov 2025 13:05
Last Modified:	28 Nov 2025 13:05
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54823

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