This article presents an approach between education for sustainable development (ESD) based on the concept of sustainable development (SD) and the main concepts of environmental education (EE) in Brazil. In these approaches, the theoretical fundamentals of these conceptions of EE were analysed with a view to the possibility of promoting ESD through an educational process considered as a result of social relations that contemplate the historical, social, economic and political dimensions of the subjects. It was verified that some conceptions of EE may be approaches to ESD and others incompatible due to the critical process of analysis of the relations between society and nature. The possibility of an ESD with aspects that enable the understanding of the contradictions of capitalism in order to promote changes and obtain a society focused on the basic human needs that allow an environmental balance was also considered.