Anzelika Krastina, MEd., MBA, senior lecturer, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Introduction
The aim of this article is to assess the impact of newly developed method for teaching sustainable entrepreneurship at higher education (HE) institutions that aims to encourage climate action by young people and aspiring entrepreneurs. The method is reflected in recently published “Digital Handbook on How to Innovate Sustainable Start-Ups and Businesses for Climate Action” and in short is called SECA guide (Krastina et al. 2023). It was developed within Erasmus+ project “Sustainable Entrepreneurship for Climate Action” by three partners – Aachen University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Turiba University (Latvia) and Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Finland) as a lead partner.
International collaborative work in methodology development
As a teacher of innovation and entrepreneurship courses, I often came to realization that even sustainable entrepreneurship topic is gaining importance in relation to entrepreneurship teaching, and there is a lot of interesting literature, cases and videos, but there was hardly any particular teaching methodology available that would provide a step-by-step approach that would help as a roadmap – how to create a sustainable business for climate action and possibly create a sustainable start-up. Later on, communicating with various business school representatives we noticed similar problems and so we partnered up with colleagues from FH Aachen UAS and Turiba in Riga to combine our expertise and forces for innovating a new methodology. Through experimenting and piloting we created the handbook that is currently used and integrated in many learning events, such as Sustainable Entrepreneurship course (5 ECTS) at Lapland UAS, Blended Intensive Programme with project partners schools and Fontys UAS (the Netherlands), study course solutions.now that is implemented by Climate University consortium (Climate University 2024).
It took us three years of work, first to make a comprehensive research on sustainable entrepreneurship practices and existing methodologies, then modeling the new approach, piloting and iterating it based on the student and teachers´ feedback and eventually publishing an e-book. Since we were aiming to develop a step-by-step guideline on how to create a sustainable entrepreneurship that is easy approachable and can be applied either independently by anyone interested to start sustainable business or by teachers and students in learning process, there was a lot of experimentation with the method through success and failures – constant learning from applications of the method in various learning events. Aachen UAS organized the summers school and tested how sustainable design thinking and problem tree for climate challenge toll works to enhance students´ view on how to turn a climate action idea into viable business proposal. Lapland UAS organized several intensive study programmes where more than 100 students participated altogether; Turiba incorporated the method in various existing courses at their university.
The result and the conclusion of the work is that in the context of climate change there is a real need for businesses to think and act greener which will result in having a big impact at the societal level and everyone can and should take an action. In addition, developing sustainable businesses gives companies a competitive advantage (Bocken & Geradts 2020). For this the major task the goal was to educate and train the entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs on sustainable entrepreneurship for climate action. Having a digital handbook for entrepreneurs that guides them to bring up the changes in the way of thinking and creating and conducting businesses, will result in a growing number of green businesses and sustainable companies in the future, promoters of circular economy, and most importantly activists for climate change action. The easily approachable, visually engaging and interactive SECA Guide enriched with the videos, workbooks and vlogs is a resource that can be used in both educating future entrepreneurs and also as a resource to train and motivate existing entrepreneurs and organisations supporting them to bring sustainability into all aspects of planning and conducting business.
SECA guide
SECA guide is a step-by-step approach that is easy to follow but provides insights and practical tools and methods. First, the guide establishes the foundation of the concepts of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Climate Action, it provides insights into sustainable entrepreneurship, its significance, and their interplay with SDG 13 on Climate Action. Further on it offers a clear roadmap for creating Climate Action-focused businesses. It provides with a step-by-step plan and practical tools to help the reader to develop start-ups that address challenges related to climate change. In each part of the innovation journey the reader is introduced to the method or tool, with defined learning goals. The user will learn the steps of the process and understand what they will achieve at the end of each step. The reader will also complete small tasks, following instructions, systematically progressing from one step to the next through specific templates or workbook tasks. Additional reading material, videos, case studies and workbook templates are linked to expand the knowledge of the reader.
Picture 1: piloting SECA guide with students from Lapland UAS, FH Aachen, Turiba University, Fontys UAS, spring 2023,Rovaniemi, Finland. (Picture by A.Krastina)
Sustainable entrepreneurship learning impact assessment
Based on the gathered feedback there has been significant impact of the handbook on its users in terms of substantial increase in knowledge, competence and confidence in understanding how to create a sustainable business for climate action. In the open survey that is continuously collected on the SECA website-platform 40% of respondents were teachers and professors, 50% were students and 5 % were entrepreneurs. The respondents suggested that the workbooks and templates in handbook are useful for practical use of the handbook material, with average score 8,4 points (with the maximum value 10 points).
The nature of the produced supportive videos was scored in average with 8,1 points. Respondents felt that their knowledge about how to create a business idea for climate action improved after the use of the handbook, with average score 8,3 points. Asked “Would you consider using the handbook guidelines in the future” the average score was 8,36 points suggesting that they certainly would use it in the future. In the opinion of respondents, the tools and steps presented in the handbook were helpful in creating a sustainable business (average score 8,8 points). Another group of SECA guide piloting (17 participants) felt strongly inspired and encouraged to consider sustainable entrepreneurship for climate action in the future after they were introduced to the handbook methodology. In another survey by 36 learning workshop participants the results showed that the methodology used in the handbook helped participants significantly to increase problem-solving skills, green-skills, sustainable entrepreneurship skills, the knowledge on innovation methods for sustainability, knowledge on climate change and how to make climate actin as a business idea.
The core lessons learnt through the experimentation process was to realise that it is easy to get lost in the “jungle” of existing information of sustainable business and climate action topic, therefore it was useful for us to begin with actual research on sustainable entrepreneurship practices and existing methodologies (Bruksle et al. 2023). The issue itself is rather complex and therefore the testing, piloting and experimentation was extremely useful to find the most appropriate methodology that can be considered as “simple” by the user, yet leading to significant competence development and confidence in their ability to create sustainable business ideas targeting climate action. We are not encouraging the user to consider sustainable entrepreneurship as a simple task, but we wanted to ensure and motivate the users with their first step in their sustainability journey to get encouraged to consider green business for the future as a mission possible.
References:
Bocken, N.M., Geradts, T.H. 2020. Barriers and drivers to sustainable business model innovation: Organization design and dynamic capabilities. Long range planning, 53(4), p.101950.
Bruksle, I., Chwallek, C., Krastina, A., 2023. Strengthening sustainability in entrepreneurship education-implications for shifting entrepreneurial thinking towards sustainability at universities. Acta Prosperitatis, 14(1), pp.37-48.
Climate University. 2024. Accessed 8 April 2024 https://climateuniversity.fi/portfolio-items/solutions-now/
Krastina, A., Nawrath, L. and Bruksle, I., 2023. Sustainable Entrepreneurship for Climate Action: Digital Handbook on How to Innovate Sustainable Start-Ups and Businesses for Climate Action. Lapland University of Applied Sciences.
Key words: sustainable, entrepreneurship, climate action, higher education, innovative pedagogy