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Purpose -The purpose of this article is to critique constructively and complement the Talloires Declaration with a focus on social and cultural elements that shape action. These elements are important to achieving the needed response to the environmental issues that the Talloires Declaration highlights. While the Talloires Declaration has been significant and successful in a number of ways, it does not make clearly visible the social conditioning that -beyond information and knowledge about issues -has such a determining influence on action and environmental literacy. Design/methodology/approach -In this article the action and change the Talloires Declaration seeks to achieve is considered against a backdrop of selected social theory and education for sustainability literature. This literature provides insights on the social change that is part of bringing about environmental improvement. Findings -Patterns of thinking and acting that determine whether action on the environment is taken, an important aspect of environmental literacy, are on the whole determined intersubjectively and reside in perspectives and orientations that are largely tacit. Guidance to university staff to achieve the aims of the Talloires Declaration should keep in focus the need for transformation of social and cultural conditioning and entrenched, unquestioned perspectives and ways of being that strongly influence student and staff action. Staff committed to sustainability will want to consider modes through which such transformation can be fostered. Originality/value -For those concerned with the Talloires Declaration, this article offers considerations important in orienting universities' responses to urgent environmental issues. Few articles have proposed that this foundational document for university commitments to sustainability needs to be rethought with the benefit of passing time and in view of a wider, and largely subsequent, literature.

The rapid development of renewable energy technologies has a number of implications for environmental educators and educators more generally. The costs of a number of renewable energy technologies are expected to be competitive with fossil fuels within 10–15 years and some installations are competitive already. From 2006–2011 global installations increased an average of 26% per annum for wind power and 58% per annum for solar photovoltaics (REN21, 2012). Investment in renewables (excluding hydropower) has increased by 20–30% per annum, reaching $US260 billion (AUD 245 billion) in 2011. The credibility of proposals for economies based largely on renewables is gaining recognition. These developments suggest that a satisfactory response to the dire projections around climate change can be implemented. To do so, understanding of the potential and status of renewables needs to be more widespread and accelerated on formal, informal and policy-making levels. Environmental educators within formal and informal settings can promote understanding and action so that the potential of such renewable energies is realised.