Harnessing New Technology for Environmentally Sustainable Business: Trends for the Future of Business Education

Sustainability is one of the top items in every CEO’s agenda and, is fast becoming an essential element of business education. Given that sustainability awareness and efforts are led by academia and civil society and influences industry, a mixed panel discussion composed of industry leaders, academics and civil society participants was organized in the LMDE Conference, to address the question “How can sustainability be effectively integrated into business education.” To better position the problem that business schools are facing, the panel discussion first addressed three important related topics: (a) to what degree are business operations interconnected with environmental considerations, and therefore how do environmental strategies affect other business units (e.g., operations or finance), or other strategic issues (e.g., innovation or strategic change); (b) what is the business case for sustainability, i.e., how innovations around sustainability bring value and contribute to the financial performance of the firm; and (c) how technology and the abundance of data today (sensors, IoT) can help in effectively addressing the sustainability objectives. Having addressed these issues and having established the strategic importance of sustainability in a firm, the panel developed guidelines and presented some case studies that could be followed by business schools in order to build their capacity in integrating sustainability into their curricula.