The paradoxes of SDGs

One of the larger problems is that the SDGs disregard the interests of nature (environment, habitats, biodiversity) and nonhuman animals outside of their utility to humans (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2020; Kotzé & French, Reference Kotzé and French2018; Torpman & Röcklinsberg, Reference Torpman and Röcklinsberg2021; Visseren-Hamakers, Reference Visseren-Hamakers2020). Ironically, the same disregard can backfire in terms of human welfare, as there is unlikely to be any People or Profit without a healthy Planet. Hansen et al. (Reference Hansen, Zvezdov, Harms and Lenssen2015) reflect that a stronger integration of all domains within the business and society fields (and by implication, education), including a more explicit re-orientation of CSR towards environmental sustainability, is both promising and desirable.

Critical scholars such as Freire (Reference Freire1970), Fromm (Reference Fromm1956), and Illich (Reference Illich1971) have warned of hegemonic tendencies in educational systems to follow the status quo, reinforce capitalist logic and ideology, and the standardization of ideas. While critical theory scholars tend to be classified as neo-Marxist, it needs to be noted that environmental destruction is not limited to capitalist societies but is characteristic of any industrial society, including socialist or communist ones, predicated on natural resource exploitation (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2016). Although consumption patterns and attitudes differ cross-culturally, the practice of socialism (or in non-Communist countries, left-leaning policy) does not prohibit the exploitation of the environment for economic gains (Mazurski, Reference Mazurski1991). This industrialism as a force of environmental destruction has been noted by environmental philosophers, such as Aldo Leopold (Reference Leopold1989), and translated in terms of education:

This quote highlights the underlying ethic of ecocentrism or ecosystem-centredness, otherwise known as “deep ecology” (Naess, Reference Naess1973), which recognizes the intrinsic value of nonhuman beings. Partially based on critical theory, and partially on environmental philosophy and ecological education, ecopedagogy has been developed with its origins dating back to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Kahn, Reference Kahn2010). The crucial element of ecopedogogy in comparison to conventional ‘sustainability studies’, is not just the recognition of social and economic aspects of sustainability, which often hinge upon fair distribution of environmental goods, such as natural resources, or harms, such as pollution, but a willingness to address the root causes of environmental destruction. While the SDGs’ objectives are oriented towards single-species welfare, ecocentric objectives are more akin to the failed AICHI targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 2020).

The root causes of biodiversity loss involve population, consumption, and production nexus that convert nature areas into industrial or agricultural production factories, destroying life-sustaining habitats (Piccolo et al., Reference Piccolo, Washington, Kopnina and Taylor2018; Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Chapron, Kopnina, Orlikowska, Gray and Piccolo2020; Washington et al., Reference Washington, Piccolo, Chapron, Gray, Kopnina and Curry2018). The United Nations report on the state of nature has admitted that not a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and ecosystems has been met (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2020).

This failure is much less publicized than any successes of the SDGs, with the wealthier, healthier, and overall larger population being the witness of this progress, despite the setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, while this progress comes at a price of the steady destruction of the life-sustaining ecosystems and wild habitats, this sacrifice seems to garner much less public and political attention, let alone corporate action, than the objectives of sustainable economic growth and social and profit-oriented systems. This failure is reflected in mainstream ESD and ESDG and as such, it is argued in the next section that they represent an education based on pseudo-sustainability.

Pseudo sustainability: education for sustainable development goals (ESDG)

When it comes to the credibility of the SDGs there are several elephants in the room. Firstly, the SDGs are built on a foundation of economic growth. Given limits to decoupling growth from ecological impacts, more economic growth will lead to an increase in material and energy use and contribute to environmental degradation, more CO2 emissions, climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and mass extinction (Meadows et al., Reference Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens III1972). As Bogović and Čegar (Reference Bogović and Čegar2012) point out, in the long run, a sustainable economy may exist only in a sustainable symbiosis with the natural system, upholding natural laws and respecting natural limits of economic growth. Therefore, as economic growth is the means to achieve the SDG goals, this will result in further planet degradation. Sustainable economic growth is, therefore, oxymoronic “because it erroneously fosters the illusion of combining endless economic growth on a finite planet, social justice, and environmental protection” (Adelman, Reference Adelman, French and Kotzé2018: 14). Daly and Townsend (Reference Daly and Townsend1993) refer to the economy as an open subsystem of the Earth’s ecosystem, which is finite, non-growing, and materially closed. Therefore, they state, that sustainable economic growth is an impossibility.

Economic growth is mentioned seventeen times in the UN’s 2015 SDGs resolution 70/1, while planetary boundaries are not mentioned at all. Furthermore, economic growth based on natural resource exploitation is not only uncontested but is seen as essential for achieving some of the SDGs such as the elimination of poverty (Adelman, Reference Adelman, French and Kotzé2018). This highlights the problem of combining and achieving social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

Mainstream ESDG is therefore complicit in a growth fetishism that is destroying the planet. SDG 8 is dedicated entirely to decent work and economic growth, hardly compatible with environmental sustainability, especially given that developed countries are already in ecological overshoot. To create sustainable societies, excessive consumption of resources needs to be curbed so that it is possible to live within the earth’s carrying capacity. Today, humanity uses the equivalent of 1.7 planet Earths to provide the resources we use and to absorb our waste. As Mathis Wackernagel et al. (Reference Wackernagel, Hanscom and Lin2017) point out, “Ranking high on the SDG index strongly correlates with high per person demand on nature (or ‘Footprints’), and low ranking with low Footprints, making evident that the SDGs as expressed today vastly underperform on sustainability.” Furthermore, it would take five planets Earths to sustain a global population of seven billion at American levels of consumption (Global Footprint Network, 2021).

The next elephant in the room is the global population, a major factor in the increasing consumption of resources and its destructive impact on the environment. Population Matters, a charity that focuses on human rights, equality, and sustainability, has emphasized that the SDGs conspicuously ignore the question of population growth, assuming that, magically, the health and wealth of 8 billion consumers will not come at the cost of environmental integrity (https://populationmatters.org). Denialism of a population problem or the need for drastic action to reduce consumption explains the disregard for nonhuman animals, common in the SDGs (Visseren-Hamakers, Reference Visseren-Hamakers2020). Maynard (Reference Maynard2021) notes that Western academics appear ignorant of the “inconvenient facts of the considerable human rights, climate and biodiversity benefits addressing the human population factor” (p. 26). Ironically, while the political liberal left rallies against “oligarchs, capitalists and free-market economists”, these “gain most from the denial of population growth” (Maynard, Reference Maynard2021: 26). Indeed, corporate, and political elites

It is often assumed that people in poor (and populous) countries have a very small environmental impact compared to the supposedly homogenous group of Western/Northern (over)consuming “privileged elites”. This ignores evidence of growing middle classes in developing countries or migration from low-consumption to high-consumption countries (https://databank.worldbank.org/source/wealth-accounts). Saliently, the very core of social justice principles should enable social and economic mobility.

The biggest problem with the SDGs and ESDG is that they promote a failing economic model that does not respect planetary boundaries and impedes the implementation of deep structural change needed for sustainability. Indeed, Huckle and Wals (Reference Huckle and Wals2015) argue that mainstream ESD “failed to acknowledge or challenge neoliberalism as a hegemonic force blocking transitions towards genuine sustainability” (p. 491). ESD has become entangled with the SDGs making it less likely that the hegemonic principles underpinning sustainable development will be critically examined, debated, tested, and applied. Huckle and Wals (Reference Huckle and Wals2015) conclude that the UN ESD represented ‘business as usual’ since the “majority of those who determined its rationale and developed educational projects and programs under its umbrella failed … to face up to current global realities” (p. 492). Thus, it appears that ESGD with its anthropocentric orientation is a project of pseudo-sustainability. There is therefore the need for a new genuine sustainability paradigm that a critical pedagogy such as ecopedagogy can offer.

Towards genuine sustainability education: critical pedagogy and eco-pedagogy

The critique so far of ESDG demonstrates the need for a new strong sustainability education paradigm rooted in principles and values of ecological integrity. Kahn (Reference Kahn2010) calls for a new paradigm for living out of a transformative ecological praxis — one that is shaped by the power of human emotions, the cultural rituals of diverse ways of being, deep respect for universal rights, and the integration of planetary consciousness (p. xvi). Ecopedagogy rooted in critical pedagogy offers a way forward for genuine sustainability education to promote well-being for all within the limits of planetary boundaries.

Informed by critical theory, critical pedagogies share the aim of empowerment through education to challenge social, economic, political, and environmental injustice. These pedagogies foster critical consciousness to understand the root causes of oppression and injustices and action to transform society. They share some common assumptions, aims, and practices, but also have their nuances and emphases as well as applications in diverse contexts. In its early development in the late 1960s, critical pedagogies focused on social issues such as discrimination, human rights, justice, and economic issues such as exploitation and oppression. Since the early 1990s critical pedagogy began to address environmental issues, and the fusion of ecology and critical pedagogy became ecopedagogy.

The works of Paulo Freire have been the biggest influence on critical pedagogies (Reference Freire1970, Reference Freire1973, Reference Freire1994, Reference Freire1998). Freire views education as a liberatory practice that is not only committed to individual empowerment and transformation, but also the collective radical transformation of society. His educational approach focuses on issues and problems that are important to communities such as climate change (what he calls generative themes), believing there is a strong connection between emotion and drive to act. Learning activities are therefore situated in the life experiences and concerns of students and teachers.

Problem posing is the term Freire uses for his pedagogy in which the teacher (or animator) provides a framework for critical thinking, creativity, active participation, and experiential approaches to find solutions to problems. It involves a learning community engaged in cooperative inquiry to develop an understanding of issues and act on a problem of concern. Dialogue is central to a learning community and as Freire says, “without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication, there can be no true education” (Reference Freire1970: 73). A dialogical learning community contrasts with the domesticating banking or transmissive approach in which students passively absorb the sacred body of knowledge deposited in their heads by the teacher. The learning community is based on mutual support to empower learners to act in ways that promote justice and equity. It is also a community that leads students to find their voices and develop self-understanding.

Central to Freire’s pedagogy is conscientization, which he refers to as “learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (Reference Freire1970, p. 17). At the heart of the conscientization process is the development of an understanding of the root causes of a problem such as climate change and pollution rather than just an awareness of its existence.

Conscientisation proceeds through a praxis of “reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed” (Freire, Reference Freire1970: 107). In this praxis, individuals develop a critical understanding of their reality (critical consciousness) that is understood to have the power to transform the world. Freire’s praxis thus creates an inner power that enables individuals and groups to become activists to change the world. The praxis impacts both the capability and drive to act and transform.

Giroux (Reference Giroux1991, pp. 47–54) similarly calls for creating a language of critique and possibility that engages students in imagining a more just world and struggling for it. This is achieved through participatory learning communities engaged in a dialogical praxis of action and reflection. Ira Shor (Reference Shor1992, p. 17) proposes an agenda of ten principles for his empowering pedagogy: participatory, affective, problem-posing, situated, multicultural, dialogic, democratic, researching, interdisciplinary, and activist. Shor’s principles sum up the main pedagogical principles of critical pedagogy.

Ecopedagogy is a more recent development in critical pedagogy that places the environment at the center of sustainability, in contrast with anthropocentrism (Kidner, Reference Kidner2014), reflected in sustainability education that ignores nonhuman species’ interests (Pedersen, Reference Pedersen2019). Ecocentrism is characterized by concern with the well-being of entire ecosystems, otherwise known as biospheric altruism (Naess, Reference Naess1973; Taylor, Reference Taylor1981) — something which is largely absent in the SDGs or business ethics but prominent in ecopedagogy. Hung (Reference Hung2021) views ecopedagogy as the joining of ecology and pedagogy — an education based on an ecological worldview that focuses on ecojustice (Baxter, Reference Baxter2005). Misiaszek (Reference Misiaszek2020) highlights how Freirean pedagogies construct learning that leads to an awareness of the root causes of environmental destruction and human actions geared towards increased social and environmental justice and planetary sustainability. Understanding the alternatives such as degrowth, post-growth, and the steady-state economy, is central to ecopedagogy.

Grigorov and Fleuri (Reference Grigorov and Fleuri2012) have highlighted differences in the strategy, language, methods, target groups, and perspectives of ecopedagogy. This can be seen for example in the diverse contributions in the Handbook of Ecopedagogy (Grigorov, Reference Grigorov2012). Grigorov and Fleuri (Reference Grigorov and Fleuri2012) stress that it is “exactly these differences co-construct together the unity of Ecopedagogy as a planetary project based on Solidarity” (p. 438). Antunes and Gadotti (Reference Antunes and Gadotti2005) point out that classic pedagogies are anthropocentric, whereas ecopedagogy represents an evolution to a “planetary understanding, to practising planetary citizenship, and to a new ethical and social reference — planetary Civilization” (p. 136). Ecopedagogy is characterized by a systemic and holistic approach to sustainability and employs visioning of sustainable futures to develop strategies for transformation.

Kahn (Reference Kahn2010) traces the roots of ecopedagogy back to the second Earth Summit in 1992 held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, though it is important to note that indigenous pedagogies with an ecological worldview existed long before this. Building on the Earth Summit, in 2000 the Earth Charter was launched. The Charter was an attempt at an “educational reformulation of how people should maintain sustainable cultural relations with nature and between each other” (Kahn, Reference Kahn2010: 13). Antunes and Gadotti (Reference Antunes and Gadotti2005), both scholars from the Paulo Freire Institute, view ecopedagogy as the appropriate pedagogy to the Earth Charter process.

The Charter has 16 principles organized under 4 pillars for building a just, sustainable and peaceful world: (1) Respect and Care for the Community of Life, (2) Ecological Integrity, (3) Social and Economic Justice, and Democracy, (4) Nonviolence, and Peace. These ecological principles provided the foundation for the development of ecopedagogy. This ecocentric Charter acknowledges ecological integrity and therefore the reality that the economy is a subset of society, which in turn is a subset of the environment (Daly, Reference Daly1990; Reddy & Thomson, Reference Reddy and Thomson2014). Thus, whilst the social and economic pillars of sustainability are important, ecological integrity is paramount and cannot be compromised as a foundation for genuine sustainability education, which is about sustaining life and not destroying the planet. Strong sustainability ecopedagogy based on the Earth Charter contrasts with the weak sustainability ESDG where at best the environmental pillar is seen as of equal importance to the social and economic pillars. Furthermore, the Earth Charter recognizes that the goals of ecological protection, the eradication of poverty, equitable economic development, respect for human rights, democracy, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. It provides, therefore, a new, inclusive, integrated ethical framework to guide the transition to a sustainable future.

Ecopedagogies are diverse, but the main focus is “participatory anti-hegemonic perspective promoting a new Earth’s paradigm” (Grigorov & Fleuri, Reference Grigorov and Fleuri2012: 439). The Manifesto for the Earth (Mosquin & Rowe, Reference Mosquin and Rowe2004) is another potential foundation for ecopedagogy. This Manifesto contains six core principles of ecocentric ethics formulated in The Earth Charter, and notably from a critical pedagogy perspective five action principles: (1) Defend and Preserve Earth’s Creative Potential, (2) Reduce Human Population Size, (3) Reduce Human Consumption of Earth Parts, (4) Promote Ecocentric Governance, and (5) Spread the Message.

As the International Handbook of Ecopedagogy (Grigorov, Reference Grigorov2012) is testament to, ecopedagogy initiatives based on an existing ecological worldview ecopedagogy have often been co-constructed in learning communities with a participatory place-based approach. An example of this is Bedford’s (Reference Bedford2022) action research to construct a Transformative Sustainability Pedagogy (TSP) that fosters teacher empowerment for a sustainable future. The context for the TSP was a Transformation Education for Gross National Happiness project with teachers in Bhutan.

Significantly, a recent UNESCO (2021) report from the International Commission on the Futures of Education was published that signals a shift away from anthropocentric ESDG towards more ecocentric environmental education. The report highlights ecological concerns such as “resource use that surpasses planetary boundaries in terms of material production, consumption, and waste”, and that the “population explosion has been matched by concurrent increases in resource needs” (p. 31). In addition, biodiversity loss and the widening social and economic inequality are mentioned (p. 3). The report is explicit in signalling the need for a paradigm shift towards an ecopedagogy: “the mainstream development and economic growth paradigm needs to be rethought in the light of the ecological crisis” (p. 64), and furthermore:

The UNESCO (2021) report is an interesting development that may put the organization on a road towards genuine sustainability education based on an ecological worldview. In the meantime, until mainstream ESD becomes disentangled from the unsustainable growth paradigm, any hope for a sustainable future lies with grassroots critical pedagogy and ecopedagogy initiatives.

Ecopedagogy, circularity and degrowth in business (ethics) education

Degrowth is an integral part of an ecopedagogy in business (ethics) education as can be seen in literature which specifies if not complete elimination but the radical reduction of environmental impacts at all stages of the product’s lifecycle; eliminating built-in obsolescence (which stimulates consumers to buy more products) and making products that last longer through repair (Khmara & Kronenberg, Reference Khmara and Kronenberg2018) and product to service shift in closed-loop systems (Sheth & Sharma, Reference Sheth and Sharma2008). These closed-loop systems are partially based on biological or organic/biodegradable and partially on technical/technological cycles.

The latter cycle is often evaluated by the so-called 10-R hierarchy. This hierarchy starts with the R of Refuse (the discontinuation of wasteful production by eliminating the need for new products), followed by the Rs of Rethink, Reduce, Re-use, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Repurpose, Recycle, and Recover (Potting et al., Reference Potting, Hekkert, Worrell and Hanemaaijer2017). The higher tiers of this hierarchy require de-materialization or a switch from resource-intensive manufacturing to keeping what is already produced in use through a product-service shift (Bocken, Reference Bocken, Kopnina and Poldner2021). The most service-oriented business models that avoid the use of either virgin or even recycled (typically, downcycled) natural resources are aided by life cycle assessments that evaluate the product’s manufacturing and delivery inputs, as well as production outputs, use, and disposal (Ünal & Shao, Reference Ünal and Shao2019). The ecopedagogical approaches to teaching 10-R strategies are reported in Kopnina (Reference Kopnina2020, Reference Kopnina2021); Kopnina and Saari (Reference Kopnina and Saari2019); Kopnina and Benkert (Reference Kopnina and Benkert2022); Kopnina and Poldner (Reference Kopnina and Poldner2022).

The first R of Refuse and the second R of Rethink of the 10-R hierarchy are akin to degrowth. Degrowth in business models (and consequently case studies and sponsor companies for students studying sustainable business) provides a particular challenge and opportunity. Hankammer et al. (Reference Hankammer, Kleer, Mühl and Euler2021) note that organizations striving for sustainable degrowth face obstacles associated with the application of the first Rs of the circular economy hierarchy (Refuse and infinite reuse) to products they sell or rent. The case study of four B Corps companies shows that few companies can easily transition to circularity as far from all parts of components rented can be reusable (Hankammer et al., Reference Hankammer, Kleer, Mühl and Euler2021). The role of informative case studies in business education for increasing students’ sustainability awareness of greenwashing cannot be underestimated (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2019, Reference Kopnina2020, Reference Kopnina2021).

The concept of degrowth is critical of C2C and circular economy’s promise of absolute decoupling of economy from resource consumption as it stresses pragmatic limitations, e.g., the laws of thermodynamics (Rammelt & Crisp, Reference Rammelt and Crisp2014). Thus, there is a need for re-orienting business (ethics) education away from the SDGs-guided curriculum towards alternative teaching methods that emphasize transformative business models based on degrowth, circular economy, and steady-state economy through ecopedagogy. While mainstream business education involves fine-tuning strategies, emphasizing branding, customer loyalty, and optimizing ways of market expansion, transformative business education would alert students to the need to consider changes to the core business models and, in terms of business ethics, challenging anthropocentric ethics (Cunha et al., Reference Cunha, Rego and Vieira da Cunha2008; Nicolaides, Reference Nicolaides2017; Purser et al., Reference Purser, Park and Montuori1995).

Critical learning about SDGs should include awareness of problems of growth-based approaches, embodied in SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). Critical learning could take the form of didactic strategies that activate active citizenship through a flipped classroom approach, in-class debates (for example about the relationship between natural resource consumption and economic growth), and role-play involving various (also nonhuman) stakeholders (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2019; Reference Kopnina2020, Reference Kopnina2021; Kopnina & Saari, Reference Kopnina and Saari2019; Herbrechter, Reference Herbrechter2023; Kopnina & Benkert, Reference Kopnina and Benkert2022; Kopnina & Poldner, Reference Kopnina and Poldner2022).

With the flipped classroom approach student groups start their seminars by discussing a situation in which non-anthropocentric business ethics may occur and asking their classmates to engage in the discussion afterwards. The ecopedagogical approach can take the learners through alternative stages in business education that reach beyond individual change (which is akin to transformative learning) towards individual and social transformation as is the case with critical pedagogy.

Critical pedagogy has the potential to perationalize degrowth, rather than relying on economic growth as a supposed solution to social and environmental problems (Bauwens, Reference Bauwens2021). Degrowth can reach beyond business-as-usual, for example by transitioning from ownership to lease (de-materialization) and encouraging the re-use of products. In business education, this implies learning strategies based on the case studies of either existing or possible corporate initiatives, for example by critically examining the supposedly best circular case studies by Ellen MacArthur’s Foundation, with students using the 10-R and C2C evaluation tools to examine circularity of the products or processes (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2020, Reference Kopnina2021; Kopnina & Saari, Reference Kopnina and Saari2019; Kopnina & Benkert, Reference Kopnina and Benkert2022; Kopnina & Poldner, Reference Kopnina and Poldner2022).

Degrowth argues for the need to radically reduce total demand, critical of the assumption that the growing economy, dependent on increased energy and material throughput, can sustain future generations (Bauwens, Reference Bauwens2021; Köves & Bajmócy, Reference Köves and Bajmócy2022). In business education, engagement with degrowth and other critical ecopedagogical approaches (reported in Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2020, Reference Kopnina2021; Kopnina & Saari, Reference Kopnina and Saari2019; Kopnina & Benkert, Reference Kopnina and Benkert2022; Kopnina & Poldner, Reference Kopnina and Poldner2022) included seminars and lectures targeted at both testing their critical thinking, reading, and encouraging active participation.

Ecopedagogy provides a way forward in sustainability education and includes the realization that education — both of teachers and learners — that accentuates critical (and logical) thinking about complex ‘wicked’ problems within the socio-economic-environmental nexus, ability to make clear choices, and form priorities in action can be effective. One of the debate topics discussed by one of the authors in previous publications was centred around the statement for the debate is the following: Poverty reduction can be decoupled from an increase in consumption of natural resources. The students also engaged in the Shell game, a role play in which the students were asked to assume roles of both managers, politicians, and other stakeholders such as shareholders and civil society representatives, to discuss the topic of Shell’s decision to drill in the Arctic.

Just as the civil rights movement and rejection of racism and sexism have become mainstream in education in most institutional contexts across the world, so can an understanding of the need to halt environmental destruction be understood and widely shared and supported by both social movements (e.g., environmentalism, animal welfare/rights) and translated into the curriculum. The ESDG is not the best vehicle for achieving this objective as it marginalizes the primary importance of Planetary integrity for both social and economic sustainability. Through ecopedagogical approaches, students can learn to discuss how ecological decline and the failure to meet biodiversity targets (CBD, 2020) could be addressed through not just the popular buzzwords but through business models that strive towards degrowth.

The way forward for sustainability business education is to emphasize population reduction through family planning investment as part of a CSR strategy (https://www.pathfinder.org/projects/corporate-social-responsibility-family-planning/), degrowth (Kallis, Reference Kallis2011), steady-state-economy (Washington & Maloney, Reference Washington and Maloney2020), and, where possible, closed-loop circular systems (Kopnina & Blewitt, Reference Kopnina and Blewitt2018).

Business students can be taught which business models or products can be truly more circular than others and distinguishing between realistic possibilities and greenwashing is key (Kopnina & Blewitt, Reference Kopnina and Blewitt2018). For example, de-materialization is almost impossible due to the second law of thermodynamics which states that entropy always increases i.e. useful energy constantly turns into non-useful. For example material products, such as food, change in quality when consumed — becoming excrement and higher entropy than the original product (Rammelt & Crisp, Reference Rammelt and Crisp2014). However, as students can be taught in sustainable business classes, parts of consumer electronics or cars, can be fully reused (e.g. metals), and other parts can be repaired or refurbished, but they can be costly. Students could calculate corporate costs in different scenarios, for example involving biodiversity accounting and investment, acting in a similar way as carbon price.

For example, some companies that have started lifelong repair schemes, such as Dr. Martin’s shoe repair service, have discovered that it is too costly and stopped their scheme (Brignall, Reference Brignall2020; Kopnina & Blewitt, Reference Kopnina and Blewitt2018). Especially businesses that might — directly or indirectly (through their operations such as extracting industries) affect ecosystems and wild habitats and biodiversity need to be carefully examined. Some businesses even claim to positively contribute to biodiversity, including detergent-making company Draft to bottled water company Harrogate Water (Casci, Reference Casci2021). In most cases, their contribution applies to some minimal restoration or compensation effort, such as tree replanting (typically involving monocultures that could be in turn used for the timber industry), or the ad hoc initiatives involving a single species in an affected habitat. For the best contribution to biodiversity conservation, corporate leaders might consider complete halt of operations, radically revising their business model, as reported by The EU Business and Biodiversity Platform (EC, 2023). The students are then asked to examine financial feasibility of transition to an alternative model of operation.

In the above-mentioned didactic strategies (the debate, the role play, examination of case studies, etc.) it is implied that ecopedagogical approaches can inform business education in ways that are realistic (not everything can be refused, as the first R dictates) and inspire hope in terms of informed calculating of opportunities. Investment and divestment are of particular importance here (https://www.dnb.nl/media/cy2p51gx/biodiversity-opportunities-risks-for-the-financial-sector.pdf), and the guest speaker lectures that addressed students in regard to the necessary reform of financial system. In courses described by one of the authors (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2019, Reference Kopnina2020, Reference Kopnina2021), part of student engagement includes a dialogue with these guest speakers and practices, not just by taking what they say or what the bank’s website states in their mission statement for face value (e.g., not every investment called ‘green’ or ‘ethical’ influences mitigating climate change or halting biodiversity loss). Students that learn active engagement also learn to politely confront the corporate partners that are often, directly, or indirectly, involved in business education.

Business students’ ability to see financial constraints and technical possibilities are key ingredients in the transformation, including addressing the root causes of environmental crises. Kahn (Reference Kahn2010) argues that addressing these crises would ‘require a much more radical and more complex form of eco-literacy than is presently possessed by the population at large’ (p. 6). But if this means more education then Schumacher (Reference Schumacher1997) cautions: