Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0002-4696-090X

Document Type

Case Study

Disciplines

Teaching and Learning, Social sciences, Interdisciplinary

Publication Details

Case Studies: Digital Education.  Learning the Trade-Off:  Simulation-Based Sustainability Education in Marketing.  Roisin Vize.  Aungier Street.  2026.

doi:10.21427/63em-3g73

Abstract

Digital transformation is reshaping higher education, yet gamified business simulations remain among its most widely used and least examined tools. This case study reports on the use of the HUBRO Sustainable Marketing Simulation, a Sage resource, in Marketing 1, a core first-year undergraduate module at TU Dublin. Sustainability in business education is typically reserved for final-year, postgraduate or elective modules. This intervention instead embedded Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles and balancing the triple bottom line from the first year of a four-year degree. Across two cohorts, 51 teams of three to four students ran a fictional jetpack venture over several simulated quarters. Their marketing mix, supplier and product design decisions moved a live ESG index carrying real in-game consequences, including emissions taxes, interest-rate penalties and shifts in segment demand. The activity was structured around Kolb's experiential learning cycle and assessed through a five-part team reflection. Engagement was strong and notably collective. Teams frequently named the profit-versus-planet trade-off unprompted, and several described their priorities shifting from financial metrics towards ESG performance during play. Forward-looking commitments to act differently were almost universal. Some students who began with no knowledge of ESG came to recognise its strategic importance once their benchmark fell short. This is evaluative reasoning more commonly seen later in a programme. The case argues that simulation-based learning offers an inclusive, risk-free and adaptable alternative to textbooks in dynamic disciplines such as marketing and sustainability. Since sustainability is inherently interdisciplinary, it also makes a case for school-level investment in shared simulation platforms to build sustainability competence across programmes.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/63em-3g73

Funder

SATLE

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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