How can we educate university students around the world on important sustainability topics? You cannot talk to them all in the same way as those in other countries – because different countries and cultures have different attitudes and priorities.

Dr Stephen Homer has gone from being a commercial fisherman and a fishmonger to a leader on sustainability education at Sunway Business School in Malaysia, inspired by his experiences before moving into academia.

He tells us all about the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) and how they help management and business schools make sense of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Stephen explains the need to educate students on sustainability actions, so they take values with them into their careers; how different universities take varying approaches to sustainability; and the importance of understanding what students want to learn.

We talk about Malaysia’s chocolate and palm oil industries; the desire of students in Malaysia to achieve economic success, and how his can be balanced with sustainability; the challenges of delivering a sustainability education that is interesting and engaging to the country’s different ethnic groups, and to those on a wide range of programmes; and the problem of accountancy students (to Jan’s disgust).

Discover more about Stephen and his work here: https://sunwayuniversity.edu.my/sunway-business-school/staff-profiles/dr-stephen-thomas-homer

Find out about PRME here: https://www.unprme.org/about/

And read Lancaster University Management School’s PRME report here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/lums/PRME-Report.pdf

Episode Transcript