Abstract
Due to the dearth of curriculum about sustainability, and also due to the emerging information on the topic, understanding of sustainability varies greatly from person to person. This study is intended to assist in establishing a baseline of undergraduate students’ views and understanding of sustainability as it relates to American businesses. In the fall of 2008, undergraduate students enrolled in a marketing class at California State University, Sacramento were asked to reply to a prompt regarding sustainability and marketing of American businesses. The results of this research may be used to assist in defining a common baseline for students’ prior sustainability knowledge so that curriculum can be created to fit the current level of understanding of sustainability. The study yielded very broad results with a few concrete principles that may be included in any plans for curriculum. The three aspect definition of sustainability includes environmental, social, and economic as equal parts, but these students see sustainability as primarily an environmental issue, with social and economic concerns only arising as a result of environmental impact. A clear baseline may be drawn fairly lowly, as students (and likely society in general) do not all use the same terms in discussing this matter. A common vocabulary and standardized knowledge will be needed if this issue is going to be discussed fairly, openly, and intelligently. It is the researcher's opinion that remedial levels of curricula would be appropriate because of the lack of formalized knowledge available to teachers or students in this realm. Indeed, this is a cutting edge field that may not get more stable for many years, but can be framed by establishing standards.