Sustainability Management
Shaping future-oriented entrepreneurial sustainability: Leuphana scientists in sustainability management conduct research and teach in a wide range of application areas with a particular focus on economics, business, management, and sustainability. At Leuphana, this field is based in the School of Sustainability and the School of Management and Technology, whose profiles complement each other in research and teaching.
The schools and their researchers work closely together in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cooperation, contributing their respective strengths to promote an integrated understanding of sustainable management. This involves the development of both theoretical concepts and concrete solutions to societal and economic challenges.
At the School of Sustainability, sustainability management is a core discipline in research, teaching, and transfer. Research in this area focuses on sustainability transformations by and with organizations. Innovative analyses and solutions are examined, particularly with regard to their impact on society and the natural environment. In this way, drivers and obstacles to sustainable transformations can be identified in order to derive concrete concepts, methods, solutions, and recommendations for action. The central question is how companies and other organizations can effectively implement sustainable change.
One focus is on the people who act within these organizations and the approaches they use to implement change in favor of sustainable development: managers and employees as change agents for corporate sustainability. They are crucial in determining whether and how sustainability is anchored in daily practice. Their motives, rationales for action, and the conditions of their organizational environment are systematically analyzed. In addition, the research interest lies on consumer behavior as a key lever for sustainability transformations. Researchers in this field examine how sustainable consumption decisions are promoted or inhibited and how companies can encourage sustainable consumer behavior.
The School of Management and Technology (M&T) explores and promotes ways to manage in more sustainable and responsible ways. Its research addresses the objectives of the Social Development Goals (SDGs). The M&T’s sustainability management department
- investigates psychological and organizational success factors for sustainable behavior and sustainable decisions,
- draws attention to social entrepreneurship as a driver of sustainable and responsible management,
- highlights ethical concerns relating to digital technologies, and
- provides an understanding of improved sustainable development of products and the use of materials.
A key question is how sustainability can be strategically and operationally anchored in corporate reporting or financing. The research area of “Responsible and Sustainability Management” is a cross-cutting topic that brings together and supports the research activities of many members of the faculty and the Leuphana University Lüneburg – in particular with the School of Sustainability.
Research Areas
- Cross-faculty Key Subject Area Companies as drivers of sustainability transformations
- Research Area Sustainability in Management, Entrepreneurship and Psychology at the School of Sustainability
- Research Area Responsible and Sustainability Management at the School of Management and Technology
Institutions
- Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM)
- Institute for Management and Organization (IMO)
- Leuphana Center for Organization & Social Transformation (LOST)
- Leuphana Innovation Community Sustainable Production
- Yunus Centre for Social Business and Values
Cross-University Projects
- Development of a Psychology of Transformation at the Leuphana Transformation Lab
- Science Space Sustainability Governance of Global Supply Chains
Leuphana is a member of the UN PRiME Initiative and is therefore committed to the Principles for Responsible Management Education. The application- and fundamentals-oriented research priorities of the schools in the field of sustainability management are incorporated into modules in the following degree programs:
- Econonimcs (B.Sc.)
- Environmental Sciences (B.Sc.)
- Global Environmental and Sustainability Studies (B.Sc.)
- Management & Sustainable Accounting and Finance (M.Sc.)
- Economics and Transformation (M.Sc.)
- Management & Entrepreneurship (M.Sc.)
- Sustainability Science: Entrepreneurship, Agency and Leadership (M.A.)
In addition to undergraduate bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, there are professional programs such as the MBA in Sustainability Management at the CSM. It was established in 2003 as the world’s first MBA program in sustainability management. The professorships in sustainability management also participate in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary project seminars with practitioners from the region.
Moreover, Leuphana’s sustainability management is actively involved in modular extra-occupational certificate courses and in the Case Study Office, which supports student projects in transdisciplinary sustainability research in a variety of ways.