Environmental and sustainability education (ESE) and environmental education centres (EECs) are Western concepts that exist at the intersection of human activities and environmental impacts. Centres arise where there is a recognised need for conservation, preservation, research and development, connection to nature, ESE, or advocacy. They encompass both formal schooling and non-formal education. ESE’s complexity is explored, especially its counter-hegemonic, holistic, socio-political nature within a formal education system embedded in a rationalist, scientific, capitalist, and consumerist society. A brief history outlines environmental education’s struggle against dominant ideologies within the sustainable development movement. The challenge of living within ecological limits, enacting change against vested interests, and the essential need to build critical mass for ecocentric transformation is considered. Examples of formal ESE programs and organisational efforts that drive cultural shifts, normalising sustainable changes, are highlighted. The Australian Sustainability Curriculum Framework is presented as a conceptual tool. In going beyond this frame and looking intently at power, politics, citizenship and the effect of neoliberalism, Huckle and Wal’s (Environ Educ Res 21(3):491–505, 2015) critique is drawn on in outlining alternate forms of social and environmental relations involving critical and transformative approaches to ESE.