Executive summary. Deakin Business School’s journey illustrates how climate action can move from ‘why’ to ‘how’, translating intention into implementation through a whole-of-school approach. By embedding sustainability across strategy, curriculum, research, and operations, enabled through top-down leadership and bottom-up engagement, DBS builds awareness and practical capability. Initiatives such as carbon literacy training, curriculum transformation, and student-led engagement translate intent into measurable action. Crucially, the experience highlights the need to institutionalise sustainability as a core strategic priority embedded in everyday practices and decision-making, while recognising that meaningful climate action is an ongoing journey of cultural transformation that demands sustained commitment, collaboration, and continuous learning.

Key takeaways

• Climate action requires a whole-of-school, cultural transformation involving top-down leadership and bottom-up engagement.
• Carbon literacy and capability-building are critical to drive meaningful change.
• Climate action is an ongoing journey, demanding sustained commitment, continuous learning, and adaptation for long-term impact.

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Introduction: Embedding Climate Action in a Values-Driven Vision

Climate change has become one of the most significant and systemic challenges of our time, affecting economies, organisations, governments, and societies. Its repercussions extend far beyond environmental degradation, disrupting financial performance, supply chains, labour markets, and long-term value creation. Consequently, climate change is reshaping industries, redefining economic priorities, and elevating expectations of institutions responsible for preparing future leaders. As educators of the next generation of leaders, managers, and policy influencers, business schools occupy a uniquely powerful position.

For business schools, this presents both a moral obligation and a strategic opportunity: to prepare graduates who understand climate risks and can lead the transition toward a net-zero future. Embedding climate education within business schools is, therefore, a strategic necessity.  While there is consensus on why climate action must be embedded within business education, far less attention has been given to the how. This gap between intent and implementation remains a significant barrier to meaningful progress.

At Deakin Business School (DBS), we are undertaking a holistic, multifaceted, whole-of-school approach to climate action that unites top-down strategic leadership with staff engagement. By embedding climate action across our culture, strategy, curriculum, and research, we are building awareness, capability, and collectively empowering our staff and students to drive meaningful and enduring change. This journey is complex and demanding, but it demonstrates that with committed leadership, aligned incentives and sustained staff–student engagement, climate action can move from aspiration to embedded practice. DBS’s climate literacy journey reflects a deliberate, long-term transition, moving from building awareness, to strengthening capability, to catalysing systemic change within business education. This comprehensive approach offers practical insights into how climate action can be meaningfully institutionalised across an institution.

Institutionalising a Sustainability Culture

At DBS, sustainability is embedded at the core of our strategic vision. We are adopting a comprehensive systems-based approach that aligns structures, behaviours, and culture to drive lasting impact. Climate and nature form one of the central impact platforms of our strategy, underscoring that sustainability is not a separate agenda but a unifying theme that informs how we teach, research and operate.

The introduction of the Annual Sustainability Awards in 2023 is one example which represents this systems-level approach. Over time, these awards have become more than a celebratory mechanism. They have helped to institutionalise sustainability by making it visible, valued and woven into daily practice. As staff witness sustainability being recognised and rewarded, new norms emerge, behaviours adapt, and a shared identity begins to form around the school’s commitment to climate responsibility. In this way, sustainability transitions from being perceived as optional to becoming embedded in the school’s operational logic and professional expectations.

From Raising Awareness to Building Carbon Literacy Capability

DBS’s carbon literacy journey began with a bold commitment to empower staff with the knowledge and skills required to respond to the climate emergency. Central to this effort has been an innovative partnership with Swinburne University of Technology, Federation University, The University of Queensland (UQ) Business School, and the Carbon Literacy Project UK.  Through this collaboration, DBS has delivered biannual Carbon Literacy Training (CLT) for professional and academic staff. The training equips participants with evidence-based insights into the science of climate change, the policy landscape, and practical strategies for reducing carbon footprints at individual and institutional levels.

A major milestone occurred in 2025, when DBS expanded CLT to students for the first time, marking a critical shift from staff capability-building to shaping the next generation of responsible business leaders. This expansion reflects DBS’s commitment to moving beyond awareness by fostering climate-literate graduates, capable of driving sustainability transformations within industry and society.

Curriculum Transformation: Embedding Sustainability into Learning

Integrating sustainability in our curriculum has been central to DBS’s climate literacy journey. We have woven sustainability principles into both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. A major development has been the introduction of a new core postgraduate unit – Environmental Sustainability for Business in the Master of Business in 2024. This unit ensures that every postgraduate business student is equipped with essential competencies in climate action, corporate sustainability, and environmental management.

At the undergraduate level, we are integrating sustainability across the Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Business, ensuring that graduates achieve consistent sustainability-focused learning outcomes. Carbon literacy content delivered by CLT-certified staff has also been embedded into a range of electives, reflecting DBS’s whole-of-school approach to sustainability education.

Driving Climate Action Research Leadership

At DBS, we have a number of research centres that contribute indirectly to climate action through their work on sustainability, governance, technology, wellbeing, and social impact. Amongst them, the Centre for Disaster Recovery and Resilience holds a direct and explicit mandate to advance climate-focused research: the centre operates as the University’s primary engine for climate mitigation, adaptation, resilience, and low-carbon transition research. Through extensive collaboration with industry and government partners, our research generates rigorous, evidence-based insights that shape policy, inform organisational strategy, and strengthen community preparedness in the face of escalating climate risks. Together, our direct and indirect research capabilities create a powerful and integrated climate research platform that positions our school at the forefront of driving a more sustainable, lower-carbon, and climate-resilient future.

Empowering Students as Sustainability Leaders

Recognising the strategic role of students as future leaders and change-makers, we established the DBS Student Sustainability Group, an interdisciplinary cohort of 15 students from across year levels. This group is designed to foster collaboration, leadership capability, and hands-on engagement in sustainability initiatives across DBS.

Students are empowered to translate their learning into action, contribute to real-world solutions, and actively shape a more sustainable campus culture. Most recently, members of our Sustainability Group participated in a global GBSN hackathon focused on palm oil and climate action, enabling them to engage with complex sustainability challenges while collaborating with peers worldwide. Initiatives like these deepen student engagement, strengthen capability in climate and sustainability leadership, and demonstrate our commitment to equipping students to drive positive environmental and societal impact both within and beyond Deakin.

From Theory to Practice: Embedding Circular E Waste Solutions Across DBS

As part of our multipronged approach to addressing sustainability, we are enhancing our partnership with an e-waste company to embed circular and responsible E-waste practices across DBS. Along with the University Sustainability Team, we are exploring an expanded model for IT asset disposal that prioritises reuse, refurbishment and resale, extending device lifespans and reducing environmental impact. These efforts directly support Deakin’s 2020–2030 Sustainability commitments and deliver measurable Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions reductions by avoiding embodied carbon, reducing landfill waste and closing material loops.

Another initiative involves the rollout of green waste bins on every floor of the DBS building, implemented by a staff member after completing CLT. This simple yet strategic intervention makes sustainable behaviour effortless and signals that environmental responsibility is embedded in daily life at DBS. It exemplifies how an individual pledge can drive meaningful cultural and operational change—transforming awareness into real impact.

National Leadership and Regional Impact

DBS’s leadership extends far beyond its own campus. Through active participation in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) PRME Working Group on Climate Action, the PRME Australia New Zealand (ANZ) Network, and the PRME Champions programme, DBS plays a central role in shaping climate action across the business education sector.

In 2024, ABDC-PRME Working Group on Climate Action, of which DBS is an active member, delivered two CLTs across Australia and New Zealand, engaging 116 staff and students. Through the ABDC PRME ANZ Climate Action Working Group, DBS also contributed to three Community of Practice (CoP) sessions, bringing together more than 80 educators to collaborate on climate pedagogy, legislation, and interdisciplinary approaches.

These sector-wide collaborations signal DBS’s commitment to enabling collective transformation, recognising that addressing the climate crisis requires systemic, cross-institutional action.

Global Engagement and Knowledge Leadership

At the global level, DBS has collaborated with seven international business schools as part of the Champions for Climate Leadership (C4CL) initiative to co-develop the PRME Climate Action Playbook for Business Schools in December 2025.  The Climate Action Playbook is an open-access resource that helps faculty worldwide to embed climate considerations into core business education.

Through these engagements, DBS is shaping global standards for climate education while elevating its leadership within the international PRME community.

Outcomes and Impact: Evidence of Transformative Change

Accreditation and Recognition

• Bronze Certification (2025) by the Carbon Literacy Project—positioning DBS among only three Australian institutions to receive this distinction.
• Winner of the ABDC Award for Transformative Change in Carbon Literacy (2024), along with other business schools as part of the ABDC–PRME ANZ Working Group.
• UN PRME Champion for the fifth consecutive term (2026–27), highlighting continued international leadership.

Behavioural Shifts and Climate Action

To date, 35 DBS staff have become carbon literate, collectively committing to reduce their carbon footprint by an average of 4.5 tonnes per person per year, a significant reduction in the context of Australia’s average annual footprint of 14 tonnes. Everyday actions such as reducing meat consumption, switching to renewable energy, and increasing public transport use are already contributing to a measurable impact.

Cultural Transformation

The DBS Sustainability Awards and wider initiatives have sparked school-wide engagement, inspiring staff to incorporate climate responsibility into teaching, research, and everyday professional practice.

Challenges

Despite its importance, the integration of climate education presents several challenges. One of the most persistent barriers is achieving sustained engagement and buy-in from leadership and staff. Without such commitment, climate initiatives risk being perceived as peripheral rather than central to institutional strategy. Climate education requires more than technical knowledge; it demands shifts in values, assumptions, and everyday decision-making practices, which can encounter resistance or disengagement. Furthermore, traditional academic metrics often struggle to capture outcomes such as research in this space, behavioural change, emissions reduction, or broader cultural transformation, making it difficult to demonstrate tangible benefits.

Enablers

These challenges can be addressed through several key enablers. Strong and visible commitment from top leadership is critical to legitimising climate education across teaching, research, and operations. When deans and executive teams actively champion climate initiatives, allocate resources, and recognise climate research and teaching, it sends powerful signals to the community. Engagement with external networks, including PRME, PRME Champion initiatives, and ABDC-PRME working groups, further strengthens institutional capacity by facilitating collaboration, benchmarking, and alignment with national and global standards.

Moving Forward

To maximise impact, business schools must adopt a comprehensive and strategic approach to climate action, one that goes beyond technical knowledge to foster awareness, shift mindsets, and activate meaningful engagement. Climate education should not remain confined to the classroom; it must extend into homes, workplaces, and communities, recognising students and staff as influential change agents in their families and broader networks. Drawing from our journey, we recommend a multipronged approach that advances climate action across interconnected dimensions: sustained awareness building, capacity development for staff and students, integration of climate and sustainability across curriculum and research, alignment with operational activities, active student engagement, and collaboration at national and global levels. Most critically, this requires cultivating a culture that institutionalises sustainability as a shared value and everyday practice. Achieving these demands requires committed leadership, dedicated time and resources, and the courage to take the first steps even when the institution does not feel fully ready. 

Conclusion: A Continuous Journey Toward Climate Leadership

DBS’s climate literacy journey demonstrates the power of top-down leadership and bottom-up engagement, strategic partnerships, and a deeply embedded sustainability culture. From curriculum transformation and staff capability-building to national leadership and global engagement, DBS is shaping a future where responsible business education is central to addressing the climate crisis.

The journey is ongoing, and DBS remains committed to enabling a sustainable world through knowledge, action, and collective impact.