Shaping sustainability leadership from the start: Educating for sustainable development in undergraduate business and management programmes

The need for the transformation of management education to meet the increasing demand for responsible business leadership is becoming increasingly clear. The challenge for business schools is how to develop effective, responsible management education (RME) that equips future leaders with capabilities for addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and responsible management practice. This issue is particularly acute when considering undergraduate business and management programmes which are by far the most popular degrees in many countries as students seek a course of study with a perceived direct route to employment. This chapter sets out a blueprint for integrating RME and sustainability leadership for the SDGs into business and management programmes. The blueprint was developed during work to deliver a new suite of undergraduate business programmes recently launched at a large UK public university designed from the bottom up with the SDGs and responsible leadership in mind. It is hoped that this blueprint may act as a starting point for other responsible management educators seeking to develop study programmes incorporating RME, the SDGs, and related content, alongside some insights on how to overcome institutional challenges and barriers to implementation.