It can be considered a duty of all educational institutions to deal intensively with matters of sustainable development: from preschool to higher education. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims at developing key competencies that enable individuals to contribute to sustainable development (e.g. Barth, 2007; de Haan, 2008; Hopkins and McKeown, 2002). Universities play an important role as promoters of sustainable development. Embedding sustainable development in their curriculum poses a new challenge to the academic system.

The Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, has already a long experience in implementing Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD); it considers itself as a “Sustainable University” (cf. Adomßent et al., 2007). In 2009, the Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Communication of the Leuphana University and the Universidad Técnica del Norte (UTN), Ecuador, built up the partnership “Teaching and Learning Sustainability” which is financed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The objectives of this North-South cooperation are especially the implementation of HESD at the UTN and the transfer of knowledge between both universities. Key elements of the cooperation are a one-year teacher training about HESD which has been implemented conjointly at the UTN as well as student and teacher exchange.

The paper will address the North-South partnership “Teaching and Learning Sustainability” and in particular the implementation of the teacher training as well as results of a qualitative analysis of the effects of this training programme. Furthermore, the process of mutual learning between faculty and students from the North and the South will be discussed.