The article is devoted to the pedagogical design of university educational modules on sustainable development in the context of a shift in higher education from content translation to testable learning outcomes that require systematic thinking and decision-making in the face of uncertainty. It is shown that the meta-objective nature of sustainable development conflicts with the disciplinary logic of curricula and provokes a gap between declarative formulations of competencies and real assessment practices, when knowledge of terms is controlled instead of sustainable design skills. As a design solution, the method of reverse engineering is justified, implemented as a three-stage coordination scheme: fixing the expected results, constructing acceptable evidence of their achievement, and subsequent planning of educational experience and content. A set of procedures is described that ensure the operationalization of competencies through indicators and their embedding in open-type assignments (cases, projects, essays) that allow for a variety of informed solutions and thus correspond to the contextuality of sustainability problems. A comparison of traditional and result-based modules reveals a statistically significant advantage of the latter approach: with comparable starting indicators, the final success rate in solving complex situational tasks is significantly higher, and the variability of results is lower, which is interpreted as a «homogenization» of achievements and a reduction in the role of random factors, including initial differences in training. A qualitative shift in the structure of systems thinking has been separately recorded: the proportion of fragmented and basic levels is decreasing and the representation of advanced and expert levels is increasing, which is confirmed by the analysis of mental maps and scaling. At the same time, the subjective assessment of transparency of requirements, practical applicability and general satisfaction is being strengthened.; A strong relationship between the clarity of assessment criteria and the effectiveness of learning is shown, which indicates the managerial importance of the pre-developed headings and the need to develop teachers' pedagogical design competencies in order to scale the approach to programs as a whole.