Why Mental Health Must Become Central to Sustainability Education

As universities all over the world incorporate more and more sustainability studies to prepare for climate change, energy transitions, and social development, one crucial aspect keeps being overlooked: mental health. Students are quite thoroughly trained in how to solve environmental problems through science, policy, and innovation, however, very little attention is given to their emotional exhaustion when they work in fields which are characterized by urgency, uncertainty, and slow progress.

On top of being the challenge to the environment, climate change is also a challenge to the human psyche. When natural habitats change, people's behaviour, their level of stress and emotional health also change. Terms like eco, anxiety, climate grief, and activist burnout have become widely used, especially among young people. Though, in the majority of sustainability programmes, students hardly ever get prepared to face such issues.

Most of the time, sustainability jobs are portrayed as ones that are full of purpose and compelling and rightly so, they are. However, these jobs are also emotionally draining. Personnel are constantly facing situations such as political stalemates, insufficient financing, natural disasters happening over and over, and community suffering. Many young professionals, especially those from Generation Z entering the field, find themselves in a situation where the above- mentioned circumstances result in stress overload, emotional exhaustion, and a feeling of powerlessness. Nevertheless, university courses are still geared almost wholly towards the development of technical and analytical abilities.

It is said that experts are of the opinion that this gap is not sustainable anymore. Mental health must not be something that is at the disposal for extra hours and occasional counseling only. Emotional resilience should be the defining professional competency especially of those who are expected to be the social and environmental leaders in the long run.

Embedding mental health in sustainability education would be an extension of psychological literacy in all aspects of learning. Students will be equipped with knowledge on the effects of stress on their decision making, the role of emotions in inspiring leadership and negotiation, and how they can carry out emotional regulation and boundary setting even when they are under high pressure. When students go on fieldwork and community projects, they can be allowed some time for a reflection session that focuses on emotional experience as well as the technical outcome. Offering interdisciplinary courses that merge environmental studies with psychology would be another way to help students learn how human behaviour impacts environmental outcomes.

Besides, this change could be seen as opening the door to new possibilities for psychology professionals. In fact, psychotherapists and counselors are no longer finding their only employment opportunities inside clinics or hospitals as they extend their collaboration to climate organisations, NGOs, research institutes, and corporate sustainability teams. Their tasks vary from formulating resilience programs and performing behavioural studies to helping professionals getting burnt out and those suffering from distress caused by the current climatic changes. Mental health counselling careers are finding their way back to the forefront of sustainability, oriented sectors.

Institutions and policymakers should take the lead. Universities might identify mental well being as one of the learning outcomes, the accreditation bodies could require psychological competencies to be part of the programme standards, and the funding agencies may facilitate interdisciplinary research. Further, training faculty in mental health awareness and leveraging digital tools for counseling and peer support can help consolidate this ecosystem.

In the end, when mental health is included as part of sustainability education, it is a very strong statement that caring for the earth and caring for the people are totally interconnected. We cannot think of building a sustainable future if the minds are tired and the emotions are burnt out. Hence, emotionally resilient leaders might well be one of the greatest investments for the long term sustainability.