Institutionalizing sustainability consciousness: higher education leadership in Zimbabwe and South Africa

Zimbabwean and South African higher education leaders confront entrenched political volatility and chronic resource scarcity through innovative sustainability strategies that distinguish Global South leadership from Northern universalism. This qualitative exploratory study systematically examined senior administrators’ approaches to integrating sustainability practices within institutions and evaluated their impact on the development of student and faculty consciousness. In-depth interviews with 20 vice-chancellors, deans, and sustainability directors, along with a comprehensive analysis of 35 strategic plans, institutional reports, and policy documents, revealed four interconnected themes operationalizing the Global South Leadership Framework. These themes include the integration of policy curricula, embedding environmental stewardship as an institutional identity, collaborative networks that extend SEVA-oriented partnerships into regional ecosystems, digital platforms serving as equity infrastructure for rural learners, and capacity building, generating self-sustaining faculty cascades that function as human infrastructure. Unlike Northern-centric education for sustainable development models that assume universal scalability, empirically tested interventions such as Theory U presencing workshops and hybrid digital local partnerships successfully transform sustainability discourse into concrete SDG 4.7-aligned practices amid persistent policy fluctuations. The findings position Southern African higher education leadership as a replicable blueprint that systematically addresses Global scalability gaps in the Global South, offering transferable strategies for developing ESD curricula and strengthening institutional operations in diverse, resource-constrained contexts globally.