Teachers’ knowledge about sustainable development (SD) and their use of teaching methods in this theme plays a crucial role in education for sustainable development (ESD). In this study, our aim was to explore pre-service teachers’ pedagogical capacity in ESD, and we interviewed 12 pre-service teachers specialising in science and social studies from one Norwegian teacher education institution. When interpreting the data within an interdisciplinary framework of teachers’ pedagogical capacity, two main themes emerged: (1) interdisciplinary and disciplinary content knowledge about sustainable development (SD), and (2) interdisciplinary pedagogical knowledge in ESD. The informants referred to several relevant perspectives from the content of SD, and especially pre-service teachers specialising in social studies showed great insight into the complexity of SD perspectives. Moreover, the pre-service teachers suggested several similar general teaching approaches in ESD, like engaging students in authentic issues and familiarising themselves with special interest groups. Especially the pre-service teachers specialising in science also reflected about the connections between multiple subject perspectives in SD and how to use these connections to develop ESD learning activities.