Education for Sustainable Development and Environmental citizenship: The Mediating Role of Green Learning Behavior

Abstract

This study examines how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) shapes Environmental Citizenship among university students, and tests Green Learning Behavior as the mechanism that carries this effect. Most research on ESD outcomes treats environmental attitudes and civic behavior as a direct product of curriculum exposure, leaving the behavioral pathway between instruction and citizenship underspecified. Using a cross-sectional survey of 420 undergraduate students across five academic disciplines and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the study tests a model in which ESD predicts Green Learning Behavior, which in turn predicts Environmental Citizenship, alongside a direct ESD-to-citizenship path. All hypothesized paths are significant. ESD explains 37.5% of the variance in Green Learning Behavior, and the full model explains 54.2% of the variance in Environmental Citizenship. Green Learning Behavior carries roughly half of the total effect of ESD on Environmental Citizenship (VAF = 51.2%), indicating partial mediation rather than a purely direct effect. The findings suggest that sustainability curricula move students toward environmental citizenship largely by changing how they learn and engage day to day, not only through what they are taught. The article discusses implications for curriculum design, faculty development, and university sustainability policy, and situates the findings against comparable PLS-SEM studies of student environmental behavior