Business School leads sustainability teaching innovation and research

Liverpool Business School recently hosted innovators from 10 countries in the first European Symposium for Sustainability in Business Education, including Professor Walter Leal, a co-author of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The event showcased innovations and research projects in teaching sustainability in business schools including games, foresight and futures thinking, reflective practices, place-based executive education, embedding social value collaborations, and a state of the art evaluation of Business School commitment to the United Nations’ Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative.

Hosting the event, Professor Tony Wall said: "The event demonstrated a sense of urgency for Business Schools globally to change what they do, and how. We are proud to see that Liverpool Business School is leading some exciting innovations in the field, which will be showcased in a new Springer Handbook as a long term documentation of our event."

Members from the European School of Sustainability Science, the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme, and the UK Consortium for Sustainability Research joined from leading research institutions including Queen Mary, Liverpool, Lancaster, Glasgow, Warwick, Berlin, Hamburg, and Dalhouise universities to showcase their latest work in driving sustainability through business education.

Contributions from Liverpool Business School included:

Embedding social value into educational models – Professor Tony Wall, Dr Adam Shore, Dr Ann Hindley, Dr Jan Brown, Dr Konstantina Skritsovali & Dr Madeleine Stevens
Place-based leadership development programmes for Sustainable Cities and Communities – Dr Fiona Armstrong-Gibbs and Lisa Knight
Integrating gamification and participatory learning in Education for Sustainable Development - Dr Konstantina Skritsovali
The use of Business Clinics for sustainability issues and added value – Dr Jan Brown
Incorporating sustainability skills into business teaching through experiential learning – Dr Ann Hindley
Sustainable internationalisation through Collaborative Online Intercultural Learning – Dr Amanda Mason, Farrah Robert, Adriana Webb, Augusto Mendes Siega, Ain Kamalia Mazlin & Lee Mei Chee Jamie
The use of digital learning and gamification in business education for sustainability learning – Dr Sue Cronshaw and Mike Drummond.

Best Paper Winners included scholars from Sweden, France, Hungary, Canada, and Liverpool Business School’s Dr Sue Cronshaw and Mike Drummond.

Professor Tony Wall, who is ranked #1 globally for “management development” and #12 for education for sustainable development on Google Scholar, said: "The award winners showed extraordinary innovation and actual or potential impact on education for sustainable development – we are proud this shows our own world class expertise in the area, and in a direction that students are increasingly demanding."

International research recently published by Professor Wall indicates that students around the world are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their knowledge of climate change and how to address it (see this open access research published in Climate Risk Management).

Dr Adam Shore, Director of Liverpool Business School said: "The event called for important actions around increasing the presence of sustainability in the business curriculum, bringing more local and indigenous knowledge into business knowledge, and evaluating the impact of our innovations. This is aligned with our own commitment as a signatory of the PRME and sustainable futures for our graduates."

Liverpool Business School became a signatory of PRME in 2020 and released its latest report (accessible here), reporting against the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In November 2022, it hosted the PRME UK and Ireland Chapter’s 10 year anniversary with a sustainable food tasting event in the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool.