Interconnecting the concepts of sustainability, innovation and transformation, this book explains how organizations have successfully transformed themselves and wider society to foster a more sustainable future, and identifies the difficulties and challenges along the way. Part of the Principle of Responsible Management Education (PRME) series, the book promotes a strong voice for meeting sustainability challenges for transformative change in a globalized world through business education and practice. A transition to a more sustainable way of doing business can only be attained by combining technology with profound system innovations and lifestyle changes. The chapters in the book, each written by a strong and well-recognized team of researchers in the field, open up the discussion about a new partnership between sustainability, innovation, and transformation that includes the global society (big world), the biosphere (small planet), and also requires a deep mind shift. The book presents cases from business (including Ikea and Eataly) and other service networks including the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), and illustrates how these organizations have transformed themselves for a sustainable future. The research perspectives are macro (policies and legislation), meso (institutional practices) and micro (business practices and individual behavior). This book is where research meets real-world business and societal practice. The chapters are grounded in business research, specifically the interdependencies between sustainability, innovation, and transformation, which makes for a robust basis for describing, explaining, and understanding the complex challenges faced by business and society in the 21st century. The book is intended for graduate- and postgraduate-level students and executive education with implications for practitioners. Furthermore, it contributes to multidisciplinary research in the field of interaction between business and society with a view to extending the firm-centric view to encompass a broader, systemic, and dynamic understanding of business and societal transformation.

As the impact of climate change becomes more evident and dire, business leaders, educators, students, and academic leaders are deciding what they need to change and do to survive and thrive in a new and dramatically different environment. This book sets out how to transform business education and integrate sustainability practices into curriculum and a wider academic culture. While some universities around the globe are still teaching business practices that have contributed to human and environmental crises, pioneering educators and higher education institutions are researching, developing, and implementing programs to transform business education and practices. With stories from 26 administrators, researchers, and faculty across the globe, this book inspires business educators with innovative tools and creative solutions to address challenges in the business world and society. These pioneers are helping students and business ventures change the way they conduct business to survive and thrive in a fast-changing global environment. Their unique and personal journeys offer tools, models, lessons-learned, and inspiration for change. The book will both inspire and guide faculty members, administrators, students, and alumni to transform business education for a sustainable future.

This book illustrates how sustainability, information technologies, and envisioning the future can be effectively woven into an integrated educational experience. By understanding what it takes to build a sustainable community, students will develop the skills needed to engage successfully in a sustainable society. Using the real world as their classroom, they will participate in gathering and analyzing data, clarifying values, listening, speaking, thinking creatively, and making decisions about their community.

There is growing awareness among leading responsible management scholars and practitioners that understanding global wicked problems is insufficient in effecting lasting engagement and changed behaviors. Research indicates that to impact behavior, the mindset has to shift, which leaves the question: How do you shift a mindset? This book guides educators and practitioners, their students and colleagues to take action on finding urgent solutions to the grand challenges stated in the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. A Sustainability Mindset is a way of thinking and being that results from a broad understanding of the ecosystem, from social sensitivity and an introspective focus on our personal values and higher self, which finds its expression in actions for the greater good. By promoting a mindset shift, educators in very diverse contexts are laying the foundation for a resilient future. The book presents a collection of over 150 student voices depicting a transformative experience and a shift in their mindset. Seventeen educator/student teams of contributing authors from across five continents describe the activity that prompted those students’ reflections, and the conceptual frameworks that played a role in the selection of the learning goals and activities. The book is written with academic and corporate educators, reflective practitioners, consultants, coaches, trainers and students in mind, and is invaluable in guiding the process of developing a sustainability mindset among participants in the training process.

How the world's most influential companies are building business strategies that tackle the biggest global challenges. Today's business landscape is changing in fundamental ways: Natural resources are growing ever more scarce and expensive. Technology and changing consumer expectations are making transparency a fact of life. The rise of emerging economies creates vast market opportunities for companies--and better living standards for hundreds of millions. In Sustainable Excellence, Aron Cramer and Zachary Karabell tell the stories of the companies who are transforming themselves by responding to these paradigm shifts and in the process shaping the future. From their work with these Global 1000 companies, Cramer and Karabell know firsthand how business can successfully grapple with big-picture issues like resource scarcity, supply chain complexities, and the diverse expectations of government and the public. In Sustainable Excellence, they tell the story of how Coca-Cola and Greenpeace collaborated on a refrigerator that fights climate change. They show how companies like Best Buy and Nike are transforming the very products they sell to deliver more value to consumers with less waste. They recount how GE and Google created an innovative partnership that is developing "smart grids" that radically reduce energy use. And they show how business leaders like Starbucks' founder and CEO Howard Schultz put sustainable excellence at the center of his company's business strategy. Through these and other fascinating stories, Sustainable Excellence makes the case for a different way of doing business--one that will define both business success and economic vitality in the 21st century.

'To summarise, this book has a clear academic justification and is aptly outlined with examples of creative and relevant ideas that could easily be adapted and implemented in many fields - particularly for those subject areas that were intentionally omitted. Readers can easily navigate to their field of interest and the book would be a highly recommended resource for many, including the student market, academics, practitioners, policy makers and senior managers.'Nancy El-Farargy, A Guide to Publications in the Physical Sciences