Corporate Universities and the education for sustainability

Abstract

The purpose of this paper to verify how corporate universities promote education for sustainability among its employees and external stakeholders in order to integrate this theme into the organization strategies. For this qualitative research, the data collection technique chosen was the semi-structured interview, performed with 16 corporate universities managers based in the state of São Paulo. Although, sustainability appears as a strategic component, in the organizational discourse, the results show that there are practically non-existent specific models and educational actions related to the theme. The barriers are the following: the lack of sustainability culture in the organizations and the concentration of the knowledge of this theme in specific sustainability departments. By assigning sustainability education initiatives to these departments, learning ends up being fragmented and punctual. As a result, hinders the appropriation of this knowledge in other organizational units and the inclusion of this theme into the strategy of the organizations researched. Thus, the main challenge founded is the construction of collaborative dialogue between corporate universities, sustainability areas and other organizational departments that could foster an effective learning process in organizations reconciling economic, environmental and social objectives.