Purpose: The research aims to evaluate whether this educational approach is being implemented in a Portuguese public university and looking for explicit references to education for sustainable development (ESD) in the online descriptions of course units (CU). Design/methodology/approach: The research design adopted for this qualitative research follows the principles of a case study with exploratory, multiple and collective features. Findings: It was possible to find direct matches with key ESD expressions in fifteen of CU. In addition, nine CU were identified in the second stage of analysis of the teacher training master programmes. Research limitations/implications: One of the limitations of this study which the authors identified, and which was responsible for considerably reducing the probability of finding matches, was that only results in which the key expressions appeared in the description of the CU in exactly the same form as in the research instrument were recorded. Practical implications: The need for an educational programme for teachers to be developed and implemented in the near future. Social implications A training workshop will be proposed with the main aim of supporting teaching staff in making the necessary shift in their pedagogical practices to include a ESD orientation in their CU. Originality/value: The instrument developed appears in Appendix--Analysis Tool with key ESD expressions.