Sustainability encourages students to adopt eco-friendly practices and make informed decisions as future business leaders, fostering critical thinking and innovation for solving global challenges. Hence, the UAS (University of Applied Sciences) Burgenland has committed itself to the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), both at the level of strategy and at the level of courses for implementing sustainability in teaching. This paper presents the results of three workshops with international business students covering the time span of three semesters and embedded in measures over the last three years such as school workshops on sustainability topics with students in the role of teachers, the first publication of an institutional sustainability report in winter term 2024 and the development of SDG series financed by the UAS Burgenland, the Business Academy Vienna, the Interreg project “SEED Hub” and TBS Consulting.

Especially the SDG series, including presentations and videos on the 17 SDGs, served as an ideal teaching material for the three workshops which were based on the Inverted Classroom Model (ICM). The series provided all information needed for the self-study periods, to be discussed and enriched by activities in class. Following this approach seven “inverted” phases led the international students through their “sustainability journey”, highlighting SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities). In the classroom and based on the selected SDGs students designed a company by adopting decent principles, discussed a case study on digital work for innovation and reflected on a simulation game related to diverse work for reducing inequalities.

The motivation for SDG 8, 9 and 10 resulted from the topic of the workshops, “Decent, digital and diverse workplaces in the future – implications for management and leadership“. By demonstrating on how to develop managerial mindsets, skill sets and tool sets for a future career based on sustainable principles students created a 3D model of new work. Students also did qualitative research; to enrich the workshops with an outside perspective, they interviewed experts in the field of new work and presented the results in class for feedback and discussion.

On the one hand, this discussion focused on the question on how transferable the 3D model is in the individual student countries and, on the other hand, to which extent an implementation of the three SDGs in combination with managerial skills and tools seems possible, as it is a model with many layers. Nevertheless, striving for sustainability at work will be inevitable for shaping tomorrow’s careers and the workshops aimed to provide an understanding of how the pressing economic and sustainable challenges will influence management and leadership in the future.

Keywords: New world of work, inverted classroom model, future careers, sustainability, SDGs.