Abstract:

Business educators recognise the importance of sustainable development goals (SDGs) to teach values to students based on social and environmental responsibilities needed in the decision-making process. Educators are one of the main actors in disseminating the concepts of balance of social, economic, and environmental aspects, which sustain the SDGs to make the earth more equalitarian, healthier and fair.

This article explores how companies contribute to sustainable development through new corporate policies. The article proposes the use of company policies as new academic materials to provide a practical industrial case on how organization are implementing the SDGs in their core business. Based on the industrial examples, the students should develop their business model considering the environmental, social and economic challenges and how the corporate sustainability management will be addressed. This educational material was prepared for a flipped master’s degree class in Business Management laboratory practice, at Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV).

In order to fill the gap between the SDGs theory and how it can be implemented in the real world, this paper use free access company policies to propose a framework to support educational documentation based on three sustainability pillars (economic, environmental, and social) to promote equity and inclusion. The orientation of laboratory practices based on the Education for Suitable Development concept aims to develop civic responsibilities and interpersonal skills and educate students through real-world cases applied in companies.
From the educational approach, the students have the possibility to acquire in-depth and specialized knowledge related to the role that the SDGs represent in the industry. The proposed framework aims to support students and entrepreneurs in considering the SDGs when defining the business model.

Keywords:

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Self-Learning, Flipped Classroom, Corporate sustainability.