A Framework for Teaching Social and Environmental Sustainability to Undergraduate Business Majors

The authors outline an undergraduate exercise to help students more fully understand the environmental and social justice aspects of business sustainability activities. A simple hierarchical framework, based on Maslow's (1943) work, was utilized to help the students understand, analyze, and judge the vast amount of corporate sustainability materials and publications. The students achieve a deeper understanding of related issues facing organizations, what some organizations have done to date, and what remains to be done. This experience also helps students to further develop communication and critical thinking skills that can aid the assurance of learning process required by many accreditation bodies.