Environmental issues have been well-documented in recent years, paying particular attention to the anthropogenic climate change impact. To date, research addressing the relationship between environmental issues, environmental justice and sustainability within social work education has been scarce. The importance of these topics in education, especially in social work programmes must be well understood and research being generated on these subjects must increase. The primary goal of this article is to help increase the conversation and debates about environmental issues, environmental justice and sustainability within the social work academic community. Social work scholars must analyse and discuss opportunities and difficulties that are presented by the necessity to make the subjects mentioned, key concepts of the core curriculum and base for social work education. The secondary goal is to describe practical ways that environmental issues, environmental justice and sustainability content can be integrated into social work education to better equip professionals with the tools to assist in the continuously growing global environmental issues.