Critical Evaluation of Sustainable Development Goals and Circular Economy in (Business) Education: Reflection on a long-term Sustainability Strategy of Degrowth from Case Studies in 'Circular' Products

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksChapterpeer-review

Authors

Circular economy and Cradle to Cradle (C2C) attempt to address unsustainable consumption as part of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These “closed-loop” production systems promise absolute decoupling of natural resource consumption from economic activity. However, while absolute decoupling, ideally, can aid the SDGs’ “inclusive economic growth” strategy, critical scholars have noted that absolute circularity of material goods, such as food or textiles, is impossible due to the laws of thermodynamics. Also, in the SDGs’ formulation, “future for all” applies only to one species and that the stated “inclusion” in fact excludes nonhuman species, with the SDGs exhibiting little concern with animal welfare or intrinsic value of biodiversity. Rather than prioritizing “inclusive economic growth” touted by sustainable development proponents, a truly inclusive approach focusing on environmental sustainability demands a complete societal transformation towards “degrowth”. The degrowth framework emphasizes the need to reduce production and consumption of resources (as well as the need for non-coercive, voluntary population reduction). These objectives need to be balanced with maintaining a socially just and ecologically sustainable society with social and environmental well-being indicators replacing the gross domestic product (GDP) measure of prosperity. In this chapter, we argue that transformation towards degrowth needs to start with teaching it as part of (business) education, linking it to the literature on critical pedagogy. Following a brief discussion of circular economy and C2C principles in relation to the SDGs, this chapter provides a literature review of sustainability-focused educational practices in business schools in the Netherlands. This is followed by a brief survey of several case studies of supposedly “circular” or C2C products that were written by Bachelor business students following an elective minor in Sustainable Business at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. One of the key learning outcomes of the programme described in this chapter is the development of critical thinking about the economic growth bias within the SDGs. A particularly challenging aspect is how to combine, both theoretically and practically, degrowth and business in education. We recommend that business school curricula include the subject of degrowth instead of normative teaching of win-win scenarios or pretend optimism of the SDGs.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEngagement with Sustainable Development in Higher Education.
EditorsMustafa Öztürk
Number of pages15
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Publication date2022
Pages51-65
ISBN (print)978-3-031-07190-4
ISBN (electronic)978-3-031-07191-1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Fungal hydrolysis in submerged fermentation for food waste treatment and fermentation feedstock preparation
  2. Mathe darstellend vernetzen
  3. Thermo-oxidative aging of linear and branched alcohols as stability criterion for their use as e-fuels
  4. Gender differences in knowledge, use, and collection of wild edible plants in three spanish areas
  5. Democratic Stakeholder Representativeness
  6. Gone and forgotten
  7. Biodiversität, Ökosystemfunktionen und Naturschutz
  8. Unternehmensführung mit SAP BI
  9. A typology of actors and their strategies in multi-scale governance of wind turbine conflict within forests
  10. Rosa
  11. The role of belief in a just world for (dis)honest behavior
  12. Assessing the contribution of products to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals: a methodological proposal
  13. Biodegradability of Antineoplastic Compounds in Screening Tests
  14. Becoming-Environmental
  15. Why does repatriate career success vary?
  16. Modification of the Lipid Profile of the Initial Oral Biofilm In Situ Using Linseed Oil as Mouthwash
  17. Existenzgründungsberatung
  18. Der Schwingung zum Trotz
  19. Maulwurf
  20. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty: Being-in-the-world with others?
  21. Ecosystem decay exacerbates biodiversity loss with habitat loss
  22. Existenzgründung
  23. A bait-and-switch model of corporate social responsibility
  24. What difference a "pre" makes: University business preincubators in Germany
  25. Evaluation beruflicher Kompetenzentwicklung in der Erzieherausbildung
  26. Demographischer Wandel und Daseinsgrundfunktionen
  27. The fantasy of the organizational One
  28. Tierschutz in der Verfassung und was nun?
  29. The Right to Consular Assistance Under International Law
  30. An aesthetics of displacement
  31. Apologies and Corpus Pragmatics
  32. An Bildern denken
  33. The Meaning of Natality – Doğumluluğun Anlami
  34. Doppelpräsentationen und mathematische Begabung im Grundschulalter
  35. Communications about uncertainty in scientific climate-related findings
  36. D'une coopération. [About a Cooperation]
  37. Arno Schmidt
  38. Silvio Huonder
  39. Stanislaw Przybyszewski: De profundis und andere Dichtungen
  40. Dokumentation in Kindertagesstätten