Higher education for sustainable development (HEfSD) is being significantly shaped by the global sustainability agenda. Many higher education institutions, responsible for equipping the next generation of sustainability leaders with knowledge and essential skills, proactively try to action the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in HEfSD policy, curriculum and practice through scattered and isolated initiatives. Yet, these attempts are not strategically supported by a governing approach to HEfSD or coordinated effectively to tackle social and environmental sustainability. These predicaments not only widen the gap between HEfSD policy, curriculum and practice but also exacerbate the complexities between human and environmental interactions compromising overall sustainability. However, these efforts represent a potential for actioning the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development. Based on a qualitative research strategy, theory building methodology and various methodological techniques (surveys, policy and literature review, group and individual interviews), this research suggests that the advancement of HEfSD in policy, curriculum and practice depends largely on a better understanding of existing gaps, target areas, commonalities and differences across regional HEfSD agendas. This will hopefully provide higher education institutions and their stakeholders across regions with some conceptual and practical tools to consider strategically how HEfSD can successfully be integrated into policy, curriculum and practice in alignment with SDGs and with the overall mandate of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This journal article explores Corporate Purpose as an approach to action the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It achieves this objective by presenting a review of existing literature on Corporate Purpose and SDGs from the disciplines of business ethics, management studies, economics and psychology. The review showcases contributions exploring whether and how Corporate Purpose-led strategy facilitates the operationalization of the SDGs and proposes an emerging research agenda. This article employed an inductive approach methodology through grounded theory to develop a critical analysis of scientific evidence-based work for theory construction on Corporate Purpose. One of the major findings of this review is that to achieve the SDGs companies need to shift found from the “business as usual” approach, which perceives sustainability as an externality, to incorporating sustainability factors in the company’s underlying purpose. The article also (1) identifies trends in research outputs and reveals five major antecedents of the phenomenon (drivers to purpose), (2) identifies key gaps within the existing literature, (3) distinguishes three current approaches to Corporate Purpose and (4) elaborates on current theories of Corporate Purpose and SDGs linkages to identify opportunities and aid future research. In summary, this article unpacks Corporate Purpose mechanisms to action the SDGs and stimulates academic discussion of business transformational approaches to long-standing sustainability challenges.

No abstract

No abstract