Teach sustainable business for the real world

In many sustainability tools, ESG is a score on a dashboard. In Hubro Sustainable Business it has teeth: a low ESG index locks companies out of customers and raises their borrowing costs, so sustainability is strategy rather than a side quest. Students improve the index through supplier choices and emissions investments, face built-in ethical decision events and are scored on equity and ESG together — all in a simulation that drops into an existing business course.

Both run companies where sustainability shapes outcomes. Hubro's approach makes the ESG consequences concrete — market access and interest rates depend on the index — keeps setup measured in minutes and runs anywhere from a five-hour bootcamp to a full course, so it fits introduction-to-business and accounting courses as readily as dedicated sustainability modules.

Students build skills in strategic decision-making, social responsibility, environmental sustainability and financial sustainability. They learn how ESG intersects with financials, strategy and operations — choosing suppliers, investing in emissions cuts, managing budgets and answering to a market that scores equity and ESG together.

The research supports simulation-based learning for applied skills — peer-reviewed studies have found significant test-score and critical-thinking gains when simulations supplement a course. Sustainability especially benefits: it's a subject of trade-offs, and a simulation lets students feel them — the moment a cheap supplier costs them a customer teaches more than a lecture slide can. See Morin et al. (2019), Sitzmann (2011) and Lovelace et al. (2016), and our research on simulation outcomes.

They share the same sustainable jetpack universe but train different muscles. Sustainable Business is built on Hubro Business: strategy, production, suppliers and budgeting, with success scored on equity and the ESG index — at home in introduction-to-business and management accounting courses. Sustainable Finance is built on Hubro Finance: funding, valuation and dividends, with success measured on a stock price that prices ESG in — at home in corporate finance and introduction-to-finance courses. See the Sustainable Finance simulation.

Yes. ESG is now part of the manager's job description, and students here practice it — weighing supplier ethics against margins, investing in emissions cuts and defending decisions when right and profitable pull apart. Upon completion, students can earn an optional certificate to add to their LinkedIn profile.