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This paper aims to propose future public policy guidelines (FPPG) in sustainable regional development for Guaviare (Colombia) – a territory affected by environmental and social distress – for the year 2035.

Following collective action theory and sustainable regional development literature, a foresight exercise was conducted using site focus groups and semi-structured interviews with local participants to identify future strategic change drivers and the most relevant social actors for the attainment of economic, social and environmental development in the Guaviare through FPPG.

The findings suggest that the development of public policies regarding building consensus around Guaviare’s economic, environmental and social issues, reducing conflict between the region’s cultural and environmental ways, decreasing isolation from the centers of decision-making, increasing the transparency of public institutions and reducing insecurity to attract investments are all crucial to attaining sustainable regional development.

Interdisciplinarity is implicit in the local perspectives on the problem that impedes sustainable development in San José del Guaviare. The paper’s main contribution is the long-term vision that breaks away from the traditional short-termism in public policy guidelines in a Latin American context. Methodologically, the significant contribution is the convergent alignment of specific foresight methods toward public policy guidelines’ analysis and design processes.

This paper aims to report on the status and the development of education for sustainable development (ESD) and sustainability literacy (SL) in three Latin American (LA) higher education institutions (HEIs) business programs in Peru, Brazil and Colombia. The paper examines institutional efforts to both introduce and implement ESD curricula and provide SL.

The methods used in this paper included reviews of university Web pages and course materials. Structured interviews were also conducted with program leaders, to examine the level of ESD, as input affecting the business programs curricula of the universities concerned.

Initial findings suggest that, in the three HEIs surveyed, there is still a tendency to talk about issues related to ESD but actions that confirm this interest are not sufficiently advanced. The authors surveys a sample of business programs curricula and interviewed its leaders and a mixed and dated picture emerged. When compared to other regions particularly the USA and Europe, the findings show that the HEIs surveyed still have not developed enough work to distinguish conceptually between sustainable development, ESD and SL making the embedment of these concepts in the curriculum not fully developed.

In LA HEIs, the ESD message seems to be slowly taking ground, equipping HEIs to respond to SL concerns. Implementation and practice in some HEIs are still at an embryonic and conceptually confused stage with regard to LA HEIs SL. This paper sheds light to help ESD delivery. It offers some strategies for moving on from this inception phase to a more structured SL provision and ESD outlook.