Positive deviants: Business and education for sustainable development

This paper focuses on the role of the private sector in education and training for sustainable development (ESD) based on publicly available reports as well as analysis and learnings from a workshop held under the leadership of UNESCO for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 13 . While there is no generally accepted role that business is responsible for ESD, without information and training, positive change, at the rate required for sustainability, will not occur. If ESD is adopted as a role for business, where should this function fit? We argue that ESD should be seen as the domain of human resource management/development. This is a relatively new and untested suggestion which is yet to gain any traction in the literature. It begins to suggest that managers of human resources might need to see their role somewhat differently and that approaches to training may need to change from simple technical training to more 'global citizen-oriented training', training oriented around future scenarios, and training that includes a broader base, such as the communities to which business is linked.