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Issues in sustainability have grown in importance far beyond early concerns about automobile gas mileage, plastic shopping bag use, and control of air pollution. The majority of the public around the world has come to believe in the severity of global climate change. Widespread income inequality has arisen, due to vigorous prosperity among the world’s affluent, while, despite improvements, over 800 million stay mired in chronic poverty. As result, millions suffer from ill health, despair, early mortality, and civil unrest. Desertification and rising sea level have eroded the ability to scratch out even a subsistence living for a massive segment of the population.

Universities hoping today to equip undergraduates to become productive professionals are obliged to arm them with at least basic competence in dealing with sustainability issues. This paper will discuss the author’s attempt at what can be done, starting with raising the awareness of students about the state of the world. It will then suggest some of the things that need to be done to move the planet toward a sustainable condition. The following section offers a review of what an educated business graduate needs to know about what businesses should do, what is already being done in many quarters, and what the business sector’s potential is for powerful impact in the future. Finally, this paper describes the mindset and worldview that students should absorb if they are able to become serious critics, advocates, and executives in improving the sustainability of the world. I will include steps that I have taken to move toward these goals and indicate where my efforts have fallen short of ideal.

Understanding the State of the World

A starting point for educating about sustainability is to insure that all students have at least a modicum of knowledge about the world today. One challenge I have encountered is that our entering students vary widely in this regard. Some students come from highly educated families where world affairs make up a steady diet of conversation. Other households have been preoccupied with merely keeping food on the table. A sizable cohort comes from overseas to study, or are children of immigrants, where they have personal knowledge of two or more countries. Some of these are painfully aware of world poverty, water shortages, illiteracy, and devastating weather events that they have left behind. Still others have grown up with views that politicize issues like climate change, environmental regulation, and care for refugees or the poor.

Our beginning survey course is called “Managing Sustainability in a Global Context.” I begin with readings that examine how to think about climate change, using Greg Craven’s What’s the Worst That Could Happen? A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate. A high school science teacher, Craven, skillfully offers a risk management approach to thinking about climate change. He invites us to look on the decision about action on climate change as a matter of whether it is worth buying a kind of insurance policy. We are asked to think about the outcome if the world gears up to take care in case climate change is real, as opposed to the case of what disastrous results ensue if we do nothing. A useful section for undergrads discusses how scientific discovery takes place, along with the role of peer review and the range of credibility that may be attributed to eminent scientists, advocacy-based think tanks, or talk-radio commentators. The book also elaborates on common psychological limitations, like the confirmation bias and limiting one’s research to a single finding. While Craven’s own leanings eventually come through, he leaves the reader to make his or her own decision on the matter.

I also have students dip back into classics from the past. Reading the first few chapters of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (and viewing a recently released biography on Public Broadcasting System) exposes them to the early days of the environmental movement. Carson’s writing and eventual testimony in Congress and advocacy work rank as one of the first whistleblowing campaigns as she confronted large chemical companies about the perils of DDT and other toxic pesticides. Her message about how pesticides linger in the soil, infect other growing plants, then the animals that eat them, then the humans who ingest those animals, all offer a primer on the food chain and complex biological systems. Many traditional-age business undergrads, outside of the natural sciences, can experience an epiphany with such systemic learning .

Another stirring reading comes from Jared Diamond’s Collapse. We read the chapter on the demise of the early civilization on Easter Island. Students learn how the inhabitants survived nicely for centuries by building wooden structures to live in and dug-out canoes for rowing great distances to reap a generous harvest of fish. Over time, however, inhabitants exhausted agricultural resources and devastated the forests, mostly for massive wasteful rituals as a show of strength against neighboring tribes elsewhere on the island. These actions rang the death knell for long-distance fishing , deteriorated nutrition and health, prompted vicious rivalries, and eventually caused bloody civil wars. The island’s population shrank to an impoverished remnant, a far cry from the formerly prospering island. The accelerating decline over a relatively short time offers a lesson in vicious cycles and a caution to us today about short-sighted, parochial behavior that can undermine the larger community. I have allowed students to experience the temptation of over-consumption in the tragedy of the commons. Through an active exercise, they are invited to claim their share of a scarce resource—M&M’s in this case—without exceeding the supply, the contents in a bowl. They invariably are too greedy, with total claims greater than the number available, disqualifying everyone from eating any (unless the instructor relents after an in-depth debriefing).

Occasional guest speakers from the sustainability field provide live stories to hear up-close how companies are actually behaving. When possible, they go on a field trip to visit a neighboring company. Students can glean other information about sustainability issues in the world. I encourage them to keep up with the New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications. We discuss convenient internet sites, such as Smartbrief on Sustainability, CSR Wire, and Smartbiz.com. I may require them to bring in and discuss in class some current events about the environment, employment abuse, or world poverty.

A traditional way of framing sustainability for many years is through the Triple Bottom Line and the importance of society, environment, and economy, or “people, planet and profit” (Elkington 1998). More recently, scholars have come to regard this approach as lending itself to concerns of sometimes competing priorities that only occasionally overlap and lead toward the same pursuits (Fig. 1). Instead, a more satisfactory conceptualization is to acknowledge that any company—or person, for that matter—resides inescapably inside society, which occupies space on the planet. It is unrealistic to consider that any action by us or our organization does not make up an element of society. Indeed, any organization derives inputs from society, whether employees, investors, manufactured components, or infrastructure. Similarly, society has an impact on the natural environment. Conversely, the environment provides a range of inputs, such as clean air, tillable land, biodiverse animal life, water, and the like. Even though it is natural to ignore such dependence on the environment, this framing is more complete, and it reminds us that we live in a nested existence , unable to separate ourselves from influences outside our door (Barbier 1987) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Triple-bottom line concept (left) and nested domain concept (right)

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Addressing What Needs To Be Done

Once students begin to appreciate the extent of concern appropriate for the environment and society, they study some approaches to what needs to be done. One source of global challenge comes from the United Nations. In 2015, 193 member countries agreed to an ambitious list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, covering a range of issues. This includes such things as No Poverty, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Good Health and Well-Being, Quality Education, Reduced Inequalities, and Climate Action (see Fig. 2). Several of these Goals can fall squarely on the responsibility of business, especially for those operating in developing countries; for example, Good Health and Well-Being, Reduced Inequalities, Gender Equality, and Clean Water and Sanitation.

Fig. 2
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Sustainable development goals

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As these Goals arose from the United Nations, they are now an explicit part of the expectations of all those business schools who have signed on for the UN’s Principles of Responsible Management Education. Silberman College of Business has not only dedicated itself to infusing the business curriculum with the SDGs but has also helped promote the introduction of the SDGs to our sister colleges at the university, including those focused on liberal arts and sciences, hospitality, engineering, healthcare, and the like. Students in all those disciplines will deepen their education if given an opportunity to study how the SDGs apply to the variety of human activity in their disciplines.

Another source for insight and encouragement for businesses striving to become more sustainable originates with the Future-Fit Foundation in its free, non-copyrighted electronic book. The “Future-Fit Business Benchmark” (2016) identifies 16 Global Challenges that threaten the future of the planet in our resource-constrained, environmentally endangered world. These include Climate destabilization, Ocean acidification, Access to mined materials, Health crisis, Governance failure, and Social instability (complete list, Table 1).

Table 1 Global challenges
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The authors of the Future-Fit Benchmark are among those objecting to the Triple Bottom Line insofar as it implies that part of business activity is separate from society and the environment. Instead,

Left unchecked, today’s global challenges put in jeopardy Earth’s natural processes, our social fabric, and economic activity as a whole. This creates an arguably huge moral imperative for collective action (Future-Fit, p. 13).

They urge a company interested in long-term success to “proactively explor[e] where its business model intersects with the global challenges—find ways to enhance its resilience and competitiveness…” so as to reap the possibility of three forms of payoff: increasing value, saving costs, and reducing risks (p. 13). The Benchmark lays out eight Future-Fit Business Principles to gird business’s actions. The three principles pertaining to the environment prescribe that nature not be subject to (1) systematically increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth (e.g., fossil fuel), (2) substances produced by society (e.g., NOx, Chlorofluorocarbons), or (3) degradation by physical means (e.g., quality of soil, deforestation, over-fishing). The five Principles related to society expect business actions will not subject people to obstacles in achieving health, influence, competence (e.g., education), impartiality, and meaning-making (e.g., cultural expression).

The authors of the Future-Fit Blueprint go beyond the idea of the trade-off thinking implied in the Venn diagram of People-Planet-Profits. In taking the more demanding standard of removing all forms of un-sustainability, they argue that businesses need to reduce every action that detracts from a sustainable world by using an adaptation of the notion of break-even. To achieve financial stability , a company needs to achieve financial performance of at least break-even. Analogously, they assert that a truly sustainable company must deliver at least “break-even” levels for social and environmental performance. For example, such a firm must not only reduce the rate of release of toxins in the workplace, or employee accidents, but also strive to actually do nothing that impairs the health of employees. Similarly, it must not only reduce the amount of metal and plastic in its products but also do nothing that adds to the waste stream after the product has been used and disposed of.

A useful textbook on more details on how to think about and execute constructive actions for sustainability is Laasch and Conaway’s (2016) Responsible Business: A Textbook for Management Learning, Competence, and Innovation (for a more general model, see Fairfield et al. 2011). The authors lay out the underlying conditions of the world and some conceptual underpinnings of sustainability, with the endorsement of the UN PRME office. They expand upon what sustainable management practices would look like in the primary functions of logistics, operations and production, and the customer relationship management functions (marketing, sales, and service). This includes debunking some of the most “modern” practices today that in fact undermine environmental goals, such as undeniably efficient just-in-time shipping and individualized internet purchase and delivery, which may save costs but at the expense of excessive fossil fuel consumption and packaging. The book also covers what responsible management can do in various support functions, such as accounting, supply chain, and human resources.

I am convinced that, like most adults, undergraduate students often learn best and remember best by means of concrete examples. As a result, I supplement their reading list with articles and chapters that demonstrate some of the things that specific businesses are currently doing to advance their greening efforts. For example, Alcatel-Lucent (now part of Nokia) has made great strides in its own operations and as a leader in industry alliances to design electronic devices that reduce energy consumption by an order of magnitude or more (Wirtenberg 2014). Students read about Unilever’s dogged efforts to seek organic ingredients for food products (Gelles 2015).

They read of the challenge companies face in taking responsibility for the behavior of their suppliers. One public shaming occurred in the aftermath of the many fatalities from the dreadful building collapse of an apparel manufacturing building in Bangladesh in 2013. Evidence of brand names on garments found in the rubble pointed to American and European retailers as the outlets that seemed to be benefitting from blatantly irresponsible working conditions. One was Walmart. It turns out that Walmart formerly contracted with a tenant in the ill-fated building, but months before, it terminated the contract due to concerns over inhumane conditions. Walmart did not realize, though, that its new contractor proceeded to contract with the original firm to continue to have the products made in the same creaky building. This is just one case of students learning some of the dilemmas and unintended consequences of efforts to improve one’s sustainability.

One important element that needs to be part of a discussion about sustainability is the extent that one can hope to achieve in setting goals for improvement . Companies that make a well-intended effort to reduce carbon emissions, raise wages for the lowest earners, or cut back toxic chemicals in the residue of their products may think about dire predictions of global decline and wonder: Is it enough to just improve our performance? Compared to what? To simply slow down but not suspend worldwide deterioration? Or do we need to take steps that bring about absolute, long-term prospering of the world? How much is enough?

John Ehrenfeld is an emeritus professor from MIT, engineer, and thinker on such matters, stemming from his history in design. He asserts that almost all business and personal efforts that strive to increase sustainability are really concerned with only reducing un-sustainability (Ehrenfeld and Hoffman 2013). It does help, somewhat, when auto fleets consume less fossil fuel than they used to, or power plants use natural gas instead of coal, or world poverty is cut in half. The real goal in his mind, however, is that sustainability is “the possibility that human and other life will flourish on the planet forever.” (Ehrenfeld 2009, p. 1). Three words stand out in this simple statement. First, he does not speak of improving life on earth, but of flourishing. This is a powerful word, whose force comes through in the comment from the forward to a book (author unknown) who observed, “When you ask someone, ‘how’s your marriage?’, you don’t expect him to brag, ‘It’s sustainable.” Clearly, flourishing is a far higher standard. The second unexpected element is when Ehrenfeld includes not just humans but all forms of life. Most cultures in the world focus on humans as the dominant species and the only one that ultimately matters, not plants and other animal life. The third powerful idea is when this definition speaks of sustainability, not “in the future” or “in the next century” but forever. The authors of the Future-Fit Blueprint design their approach to pursue just such a standard (and to be explicated more thoroughly in a follow-on e-book, now in process).

This more ambitious level of behavior has been articulated by other scholars, who describe a continuum of behavior on sustainability (e.g., Landrum and Ohsowski 2017). Weak sustainability places an economic value on natural resources and is open to the substitution of economic resources for resources in nature. Strong sustainability, on the other hand, views natural resources as priceless and non-substitutable, given the many direct and indirect benefits of such resources. An example is clean water , which can lead to health and wellbeing plus irrigation downstream. Adequate clean water can also lead to the continuance of biodiversity, which can contribute to less rupture of the food chain or resources for pharmacological research. In addition, weak sustainability believes that continuous economic growth is necessary, bases decisions on cost-benefit analysis, and values progress measured by increasing gross domestic product. On the other hand, strong sustainability views growth as problematic and sees a future built around no growth, while prescribing decisions based on the environment and the welfare of living things (Landrum and Ohsowski 2017).

In their recent survey of teaching materials and readings in 51 American business schools of higher education, Landrum and Ohsowski posit a typology with gradations between the two poles of weak and strong sustainability . The five stages they describe are:

  • Stage 1—Compliance, based on keying one’s behavior on regulatory limitations, characteristic of Weak Sustainability (cf. “Legitimacy” in the classification from an early study by Bansal and Roth 2000).

  • Stage 2—Business-centered, based on competitive advantage (also identified in Bansal and Roth 2000), Weak Sustainability.

  • Stage 3—Systemic, based on businesses working collaboratively for systemic change, Intermediate Sustainability.

  • Stage 4—Regenerative, based on businesses working to repair and restore social, environmental, and economic systems, Strong Sustainability.

  • Stage 5—Coevolutionary, based on “creating integrated, harmonious partnerships with natural systems in an environment of coexistence and coevolution,” Strong Sustainability (Landrum and Ohsowski 2017, p. 388).

These authors categorize an extensive list of written sources that are most often used for sustainability education today. One finding is that of the most frequently used readings for undergraduates, 55 percent are classified in Weak Sustainability and only 29 percent Strong Sustainability. Their database allows instructors to reflect on what sources they use and consider others to achieve the “strength” of sustainability desired for their students. While most of readings assigned in my class are not listed among the most popular, I would estimate that the bulk of them would fall in Stage 2. Only occasionally do I expose them to, and discuss in class, some in Stage 3 or, like Ehrenfeld, from Stage 4. I feel rather comfortable with this overall emphasis, though, in that most students enter this foundational class at a low level of awareness about the subject. It seems somewhat necessary to enlighten them on fundamental principles of sustainability before they can thoughtfully contemplate what strong sustainability could look like. While this might not apply to our students in MBA and Executive MBA classes, these undergraduates need to acquire a nuanced understanding of such issues and a mature mindset and worldview to appreciate the audacious aims of full-blown strong sustainability.

Engendering a New Mindset and Worldview

To truly internalize the stakes facing humankind today and consider the role of one’s personal and business behavior in response to it, a person has to acquire a mindset or worldview that is complex. As Senge et al. (2008) has said, “All real change is grounded in new ways of thinking and perceiving.” It has to be rooted in one’s deep conception of self and relationship with others and community. The general tendency of Americans toward a more individualistic construal of self-militates against easily acquiring such a mindset compared to a more collectivistic orientation (e.g., Markus and Kitayama 1991). Arnett’s seminal work on emerging adulthood points out that the cohort of traditional-aged undergraduates typically enter this stage of life attached to views of their parents (Arnett 2000, 2004). One of the markers of developing into adulthood is to acquire one’s own worldview, which could imply that exposure to sustainability issues and literature in college may kindle an evolving, deepening interest that might not be possible earlier in life.

Psychologist Steve Schein interviewed 75 corporate executives working with sustainability, learning about the sources of their concern for the natural world (Schein 2015a, b). Reasons included early life experiences , such as family of origin, teachers, seeing poverty and natural degradation, as well as a sense of spirituality and service. Many respondents reported their awareness of being embedded in the natural ecology, the vulnerability of the earth, and the value of nature. Worldviews may be seen through the lens of moral and ego development. Brown (2012, cited in Schein 2015a, p. 99) asserts that worldviews become “more complex and encompassing” over time. They may be classified as “pre-conventional,” related to the impulsive and opportunistic; “conventional,” in tune with social conventions and short-term economic goals; or “post-conventional,” with greater appreciation for reframing complex issues, interdependence of systems, and awareness of long-term implications of sustainability.

While Schein relates this typology of worldviews to executives, they may be equally applied to students. Most undergraduates would fit the first category, but some may be able to begin moving into conventional and post-conventional with powerful education techniques and experiences.

Bob Doppelt provides another insight into the mindset or worldview necessary to bring about sustainability. He describes the change of mindset required as converting one’s primary focus “from me to we.” To do so means the ability to make five “ commitments” (Doppelt 2012):

  1. 1.

    See the systems you are part of.

  2. 2.

    Be accountable to all the consequences of your actions.

  3. 3.

    Abide by society’s most deeply held universal principles of morality and justice.

  4. 4.

    Acknowledge your trustee obligations and take responsibility for the continuation of all life.

  5. 5.

    Choose your own destiny.

Rising to each of these commitments requires substantial change in consciousness and actions to fully absorb that mindset. For example, to perceive “all the consequences of your actions” means contemplating what was required to put gasoline in your automobile. One could think back to the geology of decay in prehistoric times, followed by today’s infrastructure and action to explore and drill for oil and to refine and transport gasoline to a filling station. Each step triggers carbon emissions from the process—not to mention energy expended from the steel and other components that were required to build the drilling and transportation equipment. The downstream consequences, of course, involve carbon emissions from combustion and the fuel expended to return to refill the tank.

The commitment to abide by principles of morality (#3 above) is similarly multi-faceted. Doppelt says this entails getting beyond a competitive perspective, subscribing to “do no harm,” cutting material and energy consumption, and protecting the most vulnerable.

Educating our students to grow into all of these commitments is a demanding mission. Much of it may take a lifetime to achieve, if ever. I think profound experiences are necessary for many of them. For example, Schein points to the impact on his students—and himself—in learning more systems thinking at a deep level by immersing himself in “permaculture” near campus. “Permanent agriculture ” is based on using nature’s ways for growing crops and caring for the earth, caring for the people, sharing what one does not need, and returning waste to the earth. He also recommends greater exposure by students to eco-science, along with deep reflection and journaling.

At Fairleigh Dickinson we start students on their sustainability journey through service-learning. Everyone majoring in Management conducts at least one group service project for the benefit of some group or NGO. These have included such things as contributing to schools in rural Cambodia, underwriting a well in Ethiopia and Haiti, and exposing the campus to knowledge about the genocide in Darfur. They consistently report a deepening sense of compassion for the beneficiaries, while sharpening their cognitive and management skills. Some courses also require students to interview a social entrepreneur about the business that is set up to make money but also to serve the broader world. The analysis of their learnings is then submitted to the nonprofit Aim2Flourish (www.aim2flourish.org), which adds the inspiring stories to its open global library. This experience also provokes knowledge and inspiration for students’ own future actions. They can occasionally hear outside speakers arranged by our Instituted for Sustainable Enterprise. These include provocative subjects of corporate actions, both on their values-based philosophy as well as best practices in their strategies.

Researcher and consultant Philip Mirvis has led fieldtrips of senior executives to impoverished third world countries. They report a powerful executive development experience engaging with the least fortunate inhabitants on the earth (Mirvis 2008). Participants increase self-awareness, understanding of others, and dealing with the larger world. The experiences have helped the executives connect global issues to areas pertinent to their companies. Similar experiential learning can have real impact on college students as well, as occurred with those who studied sustainability on trips to Costa Rica.

Conclusion

The results I would like to see required a long-term, complex process to educate undergraduates. Many of our school’s graduates may be able to influence the sustainability actions of their future employers. Some may even work full-time in this domain. In any case, we can be proud if they can be equipped for a rewarding, purpose-driven career. Based on our results to date, and the gaps that are visible, several elements of the worthy destination stand out. I submit that instructors should aspire to guide students toward capabilities such as these:

  • Understanding some of the science of environment and ecology;

  • Comprehending truly complex systems and systems thinking;

  • Feeling part of a larger world;

  • Possessing the confidence to think really big, far beyond their comfortable horizon;

  • Thinking truly long-term;

  • Acquiring a mindset themselves to go “beyond me to we,” considering their legacy as it affects their descendants, as well as the abject poor and endangered today; and

  • Beginning to ascertain the kind of behavior they wish to exhibit in their personal and professional lives to contribute to a world worth leaving behind.

For business schools to fulfill their mission, incorporating sustainability into the curriculum and the overall experience is imperative. This multi-faceted effort requires creativity, rigor, and patience. At FDU, we have begun the journey, but we have an enormous amount ahead before we can have a broad impact. Guidance from the UN Sustainable Development Goals, other colleagues enrolled in PRME, and other scholars can help us a lot. As with any accomplishment of real merit, we have to vigorously persist toward this crucial goal for the future.