BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
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he distinction between legitimacy and legality, the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a code of ethics, knowledge transfer and walking the talk on sustainability – all of these ideas and more were discussed at a recent BGA workshop attended by business
school practitioners where the need to change mindset was a common thread. This is true not just for those working and studying at business schools, but also for the wider society, particularly in the way business schools are perceived by others. Exploring definitions A focus on mindset could help channel business schools’ strategy when you consider the complexities inherent in defining ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’. As Jane Usher, head of department at Milpark Business School, explained: “‘Sustainability’ is an incredibly broad term and means different things to different people, from environmental sustainability to economic and social sustainability and so on. There are so many different definitions.” Usher then outlined which definition she found most useful in her role as a business school leader. “The one that I really like is from Santander; it says that sustainability consists of fulfilling the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations while ensuring a balance between economic growth and environmental care and social wellbeing. I think those elements are very important for us to focus on as business schools.” Helmi Hammami, a professor of finance and accounting at Rennes School of Business, agreed with this focus when citing his preferred definition of the term as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This particular definition is taken from 1987’s Our Common Future from the World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Report in recognition of former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland’s role as the organisation’s chair. Teaching the SDGs in totality At the BGA workshop, Usher went on to demonstrate how the UN SDGs can also help provide focus to business schools’ sustainability initiatives. “The sustainable development goals can direct us and give us some movement towards a holistic look at improving the various aspects of sustainability,” she said. Developing this idea, Ali Awni, a professor of practice and director at the John D Gerhart Center for Philanthropy, Civic Engagement and Responsible Business at the American University in Cairo (AUC), emphasised the value of positioning the UN SDGs as an all-encompassing set of principles to follow. “A school has to stress that the SDGs are taught in totality. You have to look at the SDGs as a code of ethics – you cannot really divide them and say I'm going to do one and ignore 10. You have to have a minimum acceptability performance across them all. “If you think about it from this perspective, it becomes clear. We rarely talk about SDGs as human rights and a very
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