Integrating Critical Thinking About Sustainable Development Goals: Making Biodiversity Matter for Business Students

Biodiversity decline and habitat destruction have drastically accelerated in recent decades, as reported by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Increasingly, national and international legislation mandates those businesses report and manage the potential effects of their operations on biodiversity. Despite recent advancements in addressing environmental issues in business school curricula, there is a gap in the scholarship linking business education to biodiversity crises. What kind of education can address the pressing challenges of the twenty-first century, particularly the sixth extinction? Challenging prevailing human-centred (anthropocentric) norms in Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDGs), we argue that business education needs a transformative shift towards ecology-centred (eco-centric) eco-pedagogy and eco-literacy to educate responsible corporate leaders. This article contributes to scholarship on sustainability education by highlighting the need to reorient business schools to embrace curriculum and pedagogy that support biodiversity conservation. The article is poised to enhance global policy discussions related to the 2024 UN Summit of the Future and beyond.