Drawing Sustainability: Helping Students to Know What They Know
219
learning and teaching approaches to sustainability and society and the Sustainable
Development Goals within the business curriculum.
2 The Role of Business Schools in Education
for Sustainability
As demonstrated within Sustainable Development Goals 4 (Quality Education) and
12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), there has been a growing expectation that educational systems should contribute to developing a sustainable society
(Sterling et al. 2013; Higher Education Funding Council for England 2013; Higher
Education Academy 2015; United Nations 2017) such that EfS is becoming mainstream in HE (Figuero and Raufflet 2015; Franco et al. 2018). Lonzano et al. go
further and suggest that it is a university’s social responsibility to help students
acquire the required competencies to enable them to develop sustainable futures.
The momentum for EfS has never been stronger (UNESCO 2017) but to align
it to the Sustainable Development Goals and to achieve the skills, values and attitudes required to develop sustainable futures HE practitioners need to significantly
change curricula and their learning and teaching practices (Navarro 2008; MolthanHill 2017; UNESCO 2017; Franco et al. 2018). Education systems must introduce
pedagogies that empower learners to transform the way they think and act (Howlett
et al. 2016) to support practical achievement of a sustainable future for society,
industry and organisations (Boron et al. 2017).
Business schools are well placed to address this. They can adopt teaching practices
that develop knowledge and mirror the real-world decision making that students will
face in their future role(s) as business leaders (Storey et al. 2017). This will provide
businesses with graduates who possess the appropriate sustainability knowledge
and employment skills (Drayson 2015), and reflexive ability (Hind et al. 2009) to
become architects of socially and environmentally sustainable futures. To achieve
this, Laurie et al. (2016) suggest tutors should adopt practices that go beyond the
business perspective and promote learning of the skills, knowledge and values that
are necessary to foster sustainable societies.
Although Business Schools are recognised as potential enablers of change
(Weybrecht 2017), a challenge remains; how to prepare students to both recognise and act upon the knowledge gained through participation in Higher Education
(Storey et al. 2017). This study seeks to contribute to overcoming this challenge by
presenting an innovative way to encourage students to reflect upon and recognise
their learning so that they know what they know to become agents of change.
219
learning and teaching approaches to sustainability and society and the Sustainable
Development Goals within the business curriculum.
2 The Role of Business Schools in Education
for Sustainability
As demonstrated within Sustainable Development Goals 4 (Quality Education) and
12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), there has been a growing expectation that educational systems should contribute to developing a sustainable society
(Sterling et al. 2013; Higher Education Funding Council for England 2013; Higher
Education Academy 2015; United Nations 2017) such that EfS is becoming mainstream in HE (Figuero and Raufflet 2015; Franco et al. 2018). Lonzano et al. go
further and suggest that it is a university’s social responsibility to help students
acquire the required competencies to enable them to develop sustainable futures.
The momentum for EfS has never been stronger (UNESCO 2017) but to align
it to the Sustainable Development Goals and to achieve the skills, values and attitudes required to develop sustainable futures HE practitioners need to significantly
change curricula and their learning and teaching practices (Navarro 2008; MolthanHill 2017; UNESCO 2017; Franco et al. 2018). Education systems must introduce
pedagogies that empower learners to transform the way they think and act (Howlett
et al. 2016) to support practical achievement of a sustainable future for society,
industry and organisations (Boron et al. 2017).
Business schools are well placed to address this. They can adopt teaching practices
that develop knowledge and mirror the real-world decision making that students will
face in their future role(s) as business leaders (Storey et al. 2017). This will provide
businesses with graduates who possess the appropriate sustainability knowledge
and employment skills (Drayson 2015), and reflexive ability (Hind et al. 2009) to
become architects of socially and environmentally sustainable futures. To achieve
this, Laurie et al. (2016) suggest tutors should adopt practices that go beyond the
business perspective and promote learning of the skills, knowledge and values that
are necessary to foster sustainable societies.
Although Business Schools are recognised as potential enablers of change
(Weybrecht 2017), a challenge remains; how to prepare students to both recognise and act upon the knowledge gained through participation in Higher Education
(Storey et al. 2017). This study seeks to contribute to overcoming this challenge by
presenting an innovative way to encourage students to reflect upon and recognise
their learning so that they know what they know to become agents of change.