Teaching Sustainability One Card at a Time
- Tamara Stenn
- Oct 8
- 3 min read
How a simple game builds empathy, creativity, and responsibility in future business leaders
How do we get students—and business leaders—to move from talking about sustainability to actually doing it?
That question led me to create The Sustainability Lens Game (SL Game) — a hands-on, story-driven way to teach sustainable business thinking through play.
And recent research shows: it works.
From Theory to Action
Sustainability is often taught as theory — metrics, frameworks, and policies. But in practice, it’s messy, emotional, and deeply human.
The SL Game bridges that gap. It puts learners right inside sustainability dilemmas — giving them a chance to experiment, take risks, collaborate, and see what happens when they lead with values.
Each round uses:
64 sustainability “coin cards” (mini practical tools)
17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs
The Business Model Canvas (BMC)
Players reimagine small businesses — like a lemonade stand or dog-walking service — to make them more sustainable, profitable, and meaningful. And they do it through storytelling: narrating how their ideas could reshape the business for good.
No two games are ever the same. No one loses. Everyone leads.
🔍 The Study: Can a Game Really Change Mindsets?
To find out, I conducted a quasi-experimental study with 52 business students at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School. Students were split into three groups:
Gameplay only
Gameplay + debrief
Storytelling + gameplay
Before and after playing, they completed surveys measuring empathy, responsibility, motivation, and intent to act on sustainability.
💡 What We Found
Personal responsibility showed the strongest and most consistent improvement. Students felt personally accountable for addressing environmental and social challenges.
Intent and motivation also rose, especially among students who heard a personal story before playing.
Storytelling made the biggest difference — connecting head and heart, turning abstract issues into real human experiences.
In short: the SL Game helps students not only understand sustainability — but own it.
👩🎓 Gender Differences Worth Noting
Men showed stronger gains in responsibility and intent — the game appeared to spark new self-awareness.Women, who started with higher baseline scores, showed increased motivation — deepening their commitment.
This suggests that game-based learning can meet people where they are, helping each learner grow in their own way.
🔄 Why It Works
The SL Game integrates three powerful learning levers:
Experiential: Learning by doing and reflecting
Social: Collaborating, negotiating, and sharing ideas
Emotional: Connecting through story and imagination
Together, they form what I call a psychosocial orientation toward sustainability leadership — a mindset rooted in empathy, responsibility, and creative action.
🧩 Academic Recognition
These findings were presented at the recent Board Game Academic Conference and will be published in an upcoming peer-reviewed journal focused on innovation in sustainability education and experiential learning.
It’s rewarding to see how play — when grounded in research — can become a serious catalyst for change.
🚀 The Takeaway
If we want to prepare future leaders who can balance profit with purpose, we need learning experiences that move hearts as well as minds.
Games like the Sustainability Lens Game don’t just teach sustainability — they activate it.They turn students into changemakers who see sustainability not as an add-on, but as the core of how business should be done.
🙏 Gratitude
Huge thanks to my research assistant Franziska Greiner and data analysis Marvelous Mutatarara, Royal Nyakabawu, and Anisa Spaho, storyteller Dion Froese, and mentor Dr. Jane Ross for their invaluable insights.This work was supported by the Sawyer Business School Summer Research Grant at Suffolk University.
💬 Let’s Talk
Have you used games, simulations, or storytelling in your teaching or professional training?What have you noticed about how they change engagement or mindset?
👇 Share your experiences — I’d love to learn from your perspectives.
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