Why business students should spend time connecting with nature |
In business, nature often gets reduced to numbers: emissions targets, sustainability metrics, biodiversity data. But when professionals rely too heavily on what’s measurable, they can risk missing what’s meaningful. One of the most effective ways to tackle this is through outdoor education.
For business students and professionals, this approach offers something conventional leadership programs often miss. Outdoors, environmental issues become tangible. Ecosystems, soil, and water are no longer abstract case material, but living systems to notice and learn from.
My own work with students studying for a Masters in business administration (MBA) shows how outdoor learning can support business professionals. It helps them rethink leadership, sustainability and their relationship with the living world in ways that classroom teaching rarely achieves.
My students and I have headed out of seminar rooms at the University of Bath and into nearby fields and woodland to experience, instead of just think and talk about, sustainability. Some were hesitant at first. As they slowed down and tuned in, though, the conversations shifted.
One told me they had not felt so clear-headed in years. Others described sudden “ah-ha” moments – experiencing interdependence (a........