*5.1.3 Shaky foundation of sustainability literacy*

The pitfall is the lack of sustainability knowledge, understanding and assessment at the organisation's top and some of the employees as human capital. While the framework by Casserley and Critchley [19] focuses on developing individual leaders' capacity for sustainability first, it is silent on sustainability literacy. Sustainability literacy combines the skills, attitudes, dispositions, values and understanding required to fashion a more sustainable future [44]. Lack or inadequacy of sustainability literacy among employees affects role clarity at all levels of the organisation and society. Sustainability literacy is also not conspicuous in the frameworks by Avery and Bergsteiner [17], who refers to the holistic capacity to endure over time and Hargreaves and Fink [28], who talks about breadth as sustainable leadership not dependent on people at the top only. Lambert [21] is conscious of the value of commitment from all levels and cultures but is not explicit on sustainability literacy as a building block for sustainable leadership practice. The inadequacy of sustainability literacy arises in three ways in an organisation [44]. First, the inadequacy of sustainability literacy occurs when sustainability is considered only for specialists or elites dealing with environmental issues or those in the upper echelon of the organisations. Consequently, the foundation for sustainable leadership is shaky due to the lack of widespread sustainability knowledge, skills and mindset. Second, limited sustainability knowledge, skills and values arise when there is little awareness of broad sustainability-related issues such as sustainability citizenship, basic ecology, poverty and values, which limit the actions and behaviours of leaders and employees. Sustainable literacy reinforces critical, holistic and systemic thinking competencies in dealing with complex sustainability challenges. Without sustainability literacy, people are unlikely to be fully equipped with the attributes and sustainability mindset that would enable them to take decisions that sustain rather than degrade the world around

them. Sustainability literate leadership and followership understand the need for change to a sustainable way of doing things, individually and collectively [44]. They have sufficient knowledge and skills to decide to act, favouring the triple bottom line. Lastly, a lack of clear understanding of the macro- and micro-level links of the social, economic and environmental perspectives affects the level of sustainable literacy. The shaky foundation of sustainability literacy is exacerbated when organisational leadership lack contextual clarity on environmental and social thresholds or 'do-not-exceed' resource limits to define the lines between sustainability and unsustainability.
