From information to empowerment: Teaching sustainable business development by enabling an experiential and participatory problem-solving process in the classroom

The aim of this paper is to present a teaching concept by which students develop a solution to one concrete challenge posed by the SDGs via a structured participatory process. The aim of the concept is twofold. First, to create an active learning process in which students move from being informed about the pressing challenges described by the SDGs, i.e., from a mere passive-learning setting to developing possible solutions on their own. Second, it aims to provide students with a concrete tool by which they can implement a participatory process in their future professional endeavours. For this, a five-level teaching concept – the Public Participation Spectrum (PPS) developed by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) – was used as structural framework. Our proposed concept is based on a thorough literature review on teaching sustainability to business students, and on a case study about a pilot course implemented with undergraduate students. In the pilot course, the content-related objectives could be achieved satisfactorily. However, after evaluating the extended feedback given by the students and the experience of the teacher, it seemed obvious that the applied collaborative learning experience among peers and the cooperation with external stakeholders needs to be specifically addressed and enhanced.