Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify components and educational design principles for strengthening sustainability competence in and through higher education. Design/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper that uses an exemplary autobiographical empirical case study in order to illustrate and support a line of reasoning. Findings: A number of "Gestalts" of mind-sets of sustainability competence and key elements of the learning processes needed for developing such competence have been identified. Originality/value: This is one of the first papers to consider sustainability competence from a transformative social learning perspective. The value of the paper lies in its potential to help teachers of university courses in re-designing their educational processes with sustainability competence in mind. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table, and 2 notes.)