This Digital tool for social sustainability in business provides students with a practical way to learn how social sustainability is integrated into business strategy, people management, product design, and reporting. With this tool, students can simulate real managerial decisions, practise reporting, and understand how firms can pursue fairness, inclusion, and accessibility while growing their business. These exercises can be used in courses on strategy, sustainability, entrepreneurship, HRM, or any business and management related courses.
Students may either invent their own fictional company or select an existing company. In both cases, they use the two main features of the tool - the Social Sustainability Reporting Forms and VSME Standard Report - along with templates and materials in the "Learn and Plan" section. This allows them to practice how a management team evaluates the current situation, identifies gaps, and prepares a realistic improvement plan for social sustainability. Moreover, students can check their own inclusion competencies with the tool Inclusion competencies and design a personal plan for improvements this way developing their inclusive managerial mindset and responsible management skills.
Below are potential exercises and facilitation guidance for educators.
Exercise 1: Setting Up the Fictional or Case Firm
In this first exercise, students choose whether they want to work with a fictional firm or an existing company. Educators should encourage them to think about the nature of the business, its size, its customers, and what social sustainability challenges it might realistically face. If using an existing firm, students can collect publicly available information to support their analysis. Educators may begin with a short discussion about why SMEs often lack formal structures and how this tool can help them simulate practical, small-scale sustainability decisions. Educators may also use cases from the DEI4SME books and online case repositorium: https://dei4sme.eu/teaching-cases/ or allow students to select the case from this open access case collection.
Exercise 2: Reviewing the Learning Materials in "Learn and Plan"
When reflecting on the selected case, students can explore the examples, explanations, and templates in the "Learn and Plan" section. These materials help them understand four areas of engagement with social sustainability in business as well as related concepts. Educators may encourage students to identify three to five practices that would be most relevant for their fictional or case firm. This exercise works well as a group assignment where students present which practices they believe would make the biggest difference in the case firm and why.
Exercise 3: Simulating the Management Team Meeting
In this part of the learning process, students simulate a management team meeting. Each team member takes a fictional role such as CEO, HR manager, operations manager, or sustainability officer, depending on the size and form of their selected firm. The group then discusses how to improve the firm's social sustainability based on the earlier assessment by using templates for planning available in the section "Learn and plan" within each area of engagement with social sustainability in business. This simulation teaches students how different managerial perspectives contribute to more balanced and inclusive decisions and how to approach social sustainability integration work in a more structured way even within the SME context. Simple planning templates help students understand connections between strategic goals, specific measures of success, and accountability management in firms. Moreover, these templates help them select priority actions, describe why they matter, and outline the steps needed to implement them. Educators can support students by reminding them to choose actions that match the size and resources of an SME. This part of the simulation helps students understand how strategies become concrete through simple operational steps and how inclusion and social sustainability can be built through daily practices and strategic thinking.
Exercise 4: Creating a Social Sustainability Report or VSME Report
In this exercise, students use the Social Sustainability Reporting Forms to prepare a short report about their fictional or case firm. The report helps students learn basic reporting principles and understand the difference between legal compliance, progress tracking, and voluntary sustainability practices.
Exercise 5: Reflecting on Strategy and Long-Term Impact
To conclude the learning experience, students reflect on how social sustainability links to strategic management and business development. Educators can encourage them to consider questions such as how their actions might affect employee motivation, customer trust, or opportunities for innovation. Students also reflect on how a purpose-driven or shared-value business model could benefit their firm, especially if they continued their sustainability efforts over time.
Exercise 6: Assessing the Firm Using the Inclusion Competency Assessment
In this exercise, students use the Inclusion Competency Assessment to explore the current state of their individual competencies, especially to become inclusive and responsible managers. Educators can facilitate this activity by asking students to imagine themselves as managers who want to understand their strengths and weaknesses and talk about how manager features connect with the firm's strategic actions (e.g., when using microfoundations or Upper Echelons Theory). This can be an individual assignment, so students can personally engage with their development without feeling unnecessary external pressures. This assignment can be used with the learning method of diversity and inclusion as a learning journey.
Educator Tips for Supporting the Learning Process
Educators can enhance the use of the digital tool by creating short class discussions at each stage, providing examples from real companies, or inviting students to compare different team outcomes. The tool is flexible and can be used in short workshops or longer assignment cycles. It is especially helpful for students who learn best by doing, as it allows them to practise realistic business planning and sustainability reporting in a safe and creative environment.