Advancing ecology and economics through a business-science synthesis

This paper provides an overview of the concept of sustainability, presents our definition of sustainability, and contends that students need to have exposure to both business and scientific perspectives as undergraduates. We argue that the typical university class may be ineffective in conveying the scope of changes now taking place in the business world, and offer our pedagogic innovations as an alternative to the status quo. The result is a capstone course in sustainability team taught by one professor from the School of Business and one from the College of Arts and Science. The intended audience for the course is undergraduate students majoring in business or science. The content draws heavily on the many parallels between ecology and economics, including systems and resilience, ethics and valuation issues, and information and dialogue as central to the process of sustainability. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.