Sustainability, which was once only thought of as a policy objective, has developed into a prominent normative claim – a ‘central’ claim that increasingly demands constitutional recognition. Understanding the constitutional and legal relations to sustainability requires a reimagining of constitutionalism per se; this reimagining is not just a matter of institutional reform but also calls for a normative and theoretical shift. Much of constitutional theory rests on human rights. Yet sustainability challenges this anthropocentric bias.1 Under the attitude of anthropocentrism, the natural environment is treated as a backdrop for human activity, not a subject of legal concern. Nevertheless, the environment is not only instrumental to human well-being; it possesses intrinsic value and systemic agency. The answer to this phenomenon comes from the classical, traditional constitutionalism which was forged in the Enlightenment and liberal revolutions of the 18th century, and is rooted in values of individual autonomy, limited government, and separation of powers.2 Its animating concern is to protect negative freedoms against arbitrary power and to establish the rule of law. It succeeded in securing essential civil and political rights, yet it largely neglected ecological realities. The environment was considered by law as external, as a passive resource rather than an active subject needing protection or recognition. The anthropocentric basis, along with the temporary short-sightedness of legal cycles and electoral timeframes that meant traditional constitutional mechanisms were ill suited to address long-term, systemic issues with environmental degradation and climate change. In the context of anthropocentrism, the rights and obligations are in the present time, considering only the immediate, with little regard to longer-term consequences to the environment (temporal myopia).3 The economic development is often constitutionally protected without ecological qualifications (resource extractivism).