Educating for Change in Mindset and Worldview on Sustainability: One Teacher’s Story

Organizations around the world have become increasingly concerned about managing for sustainability. Educating undergraduates about sustainability presents the challenge of dealing with students with limited knowledge, politicized awareness, and modest understanding of business and sustainability issues. Traditional-aged students are at a stage of deriving their own worldview on many subjects, including their place in a broader world. Equipping them to be useful professionals in the future, or even specializing in sustainability-oriented careers, requires raising their awareness of the state of the world in environmental, societal, political, and business terms. A curriculum needs to get them acquainted with what the world needs to reach a more fruitful future, as well as the strategies that the business sector can pursue for that purpose. This study reports one professor’s attempt to create a comprehensive pedagogy to produce highly qualified graduates and support them in acquiring a mindset and worldview that includes cognitive skills, fundamental values, and confidence to make an appreciable impact toward a sustainable planet.