Issues in the Current State of Environmental Management Education, the Nexus of Environmental Education and Management Education

환경교육과 경영교육의 접점, 환경경영교육의 현황과 과제

Following the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, a number of companies began to incorporate the concept of Environmental Sustainability into their business activities. Soon after this, interest in business sustainability within the academic world began to grow and a number of universities in Europe and North America decided to develop environmental management education-related materials and curricula under the support from their respective govemments and private companies. Starting in 1996, a wide-range of environmental management education programs also began to appear in several Korean universities. However, in contrast with the gradual evolution of environmental management education into a single study field internationally, environmental management education in Korea has not become fully specialized, nor has it developed in a systematic manner. In order to enhance and facilitate domestic environmental management education in Korea, universities must put more effort into differentiating environmental management education courses from regular environmental courses through the development of curricula related to business management. The business world has an immense impact on the environment and international environmental regulations are steadily becoming stronger. In this light, environmental education programs need to extend their sphere of study not only to the spread of knowledge and sensitivity towards the environment among members of the general public, but also train businessmen to have an understanding of how their actions impact the environment.