The hegemony of the neoclassical model as a conceptual and analytical framework to explain the operating logics of capitalism has made the ethics that this model carries implicit – the criteria, behaviours of the actors, etc., which are considered better or more appropriate due to the supposed good functioning of the system – have also occurred hegemonically. One of these “ethical” criteria or behaviors is the so-called stockholder theory, whereby a company’s sole responsibility is to increase profits for shareholders. In this article, we question the compatibility between this theory’s validity – as the empirical analysis indicates – with the social demand for companies to act with other ethics, and also how it is more plausible to move towards this change of values.

Universities can be considered a key element in promoting sustainable development through education, research, innovation and social leadership. In this educational-focused article, we discuss the need to provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to understand and address sustainability challenges. To do this, it will be very important to introduce sustainability – and also other related concepts – in university curriculums and, in particular, in Economic and Business courses, where future business leaders are currently being formed. For this reason, the article presented has a double objective, on the one hand, to answer this question: what are we teaching about this topic in universities and, in particular, in Economics and Business courses; and on the other hand: how are we integrating it into curriculum. The article reviews over time the main subjects that have covered this topic – from business ethics to ESG criteria, to CSR – and proposes different strategies to integrate this content into the curriculum.

Coinciding with the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the UOC, the following article aims to review the main transformations that the basic areas of business have undergone over the past two and a half decades. For this, we have enjoyed the participation of five female and five male professors in the studies of economy and business, who have given us some broad strokes on some of the main changes during this period and the challenges still to come. These topics are: leadership, decision-making, internationalization, digitalization, strategy, adaptation to change, ethics, corporate social responsibility, diversity, inclusion, business modal innovation, and finance.

The article analyses, from a historical perspective, the geopolitics of energy in the framework of the capitalist system. The first section explains the birth of the geopolitics of energy (a geography of energy by state and the kind of energy relations between states), arguing that its birth is associated with fossil fuels and its goal is the safeguarding of supremacy through both territorial control of energy sources (or flows) and their commodification. After a brief review of the geopolitics of oil, the article ventures on what, in the present context of capitalism, the geopolitics of renewables might be. The main conclusion is that, because of the inherent features of renewables, at the end of the day the outcome will be the result of a political choice. The question is whether this choice will also be aimed at both grounding hegemony on international energy relations and funding the global unbalances of the system.

In the last twenty years, a methodology that allows us to measure, with a high degree of international consensus, multidimensional poverty has been consolidated. The definition of the measurement methodology has facilitated to specify and put into operation the concept. In parallel, “sectoral” poverty proposals have been used and finally consolidated, with their own conceptual importance and usefulness. The link between the dimensions of multidimensional poverty and sectoral poverties is diverse. This paper briefly presents and discusses different approaches (labour, energy, water, sanitation, and period poverties). It is argued that reducing sectoral poverties to the dimensions of multidimensional poverty limits their usefulness and impact. The methodological work done previously in terms of measurement of multidimensional poverty, in the singular, helps also to advance in the multidimensional characterization of said sectoral poverties.

Becoming the first continent to be climatically neutral is currently both Europe’s main challenge and greatest opportunity. A new energy model, based on energy that is renewable, distributed and efficient, is crucial in order to accelerate the solution to the climate emergency. In this sense, on 25 February 2015, the European Commission set out a vision of an Energy Union with citizens at its core, where citizens take ownership of the energy transition, benefit from new technologies to reduce their bills and participate actively in the market. In June 2019, the European Union turned this public policy objective into an applicable regulation while the new EU directive on the electricity market set a new actor on the energy market: the citizen energy community. In this article, we analyse the meaning and significance of this key player in transforming the economy into a climate-neutral economy.

The financial sector, and banking in particular, is especially sensitive to the application of business ethics. On the one hand, because its role as a strategic sector of the economy is a key and determining factor and, on the other, because during recent years, and especially since the financial crisis of 2008, it has been the protagonist of numerous scandals and bad practices. The adoption of ethical behavior is fundamental in the operation of banks, since these organizations manage a very sensitive asset that is owned by their customers — money. Sota much sota, that not only speaks of banking ethics, but even the existence of ethical banks; two aspects that are different. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics that define ethical banking and what aspects differentiate it from banking ethics.

The sharing economy has burst forcefully onto the scene in a wide range productive sectors (transport, tourism, finance, etc.). This collaborative approach is proving itself to be efficient in terms of business management, while also offering opportunities for citizens to exchange values (providing them with greater autonomy) and in many cases reducing their ecological footprint. Despite these virtues being hard to dispute, a critical and constructive inspection must be carried out to see whether sharing economy companies are also helping to change society's values, or if they are simply making capitalism more efficient. In the analysis for this article, a) we differentiate between the wide variety of actors in the sharing economy according to their purpose; and b) we present three avenues of exploration in which interest has been growing over the past year (the Sharing Business Model Compass, platform cooperativism, and Commons Collaborative Economies). Now is a critical moment if we are to guide the evolution of the sharing economy towards reaching its full potential. This is a complex matter that should not and indeed cannot be simplified.

Financial exclusion, while producing greater social exclusion and poverty, is contributing to the emergence of new types of organization in finance, banking and non-banking. Based on ethics and solidarity, such organizations favour the inclusion of the most marginalized groups. Ethical banking and community banking (including credit unions) offer an alternative to conventional banking and are increasingly being accepted. Moreover, civil society itself is leading a movement through which new non-banking ethical and solidarity finance initiatives are also emerging. Examples include financial services cooperatives, integrated cooperatives, collaborative finance, self-financed communities, time banks, social currencies and community development banks, among others. This paper analyses the main aspects arising globally from these processes of change, and highlights potential risks where these initiatives are used by large financial and non-financial corporations through new finance technologies (FinTech). Ethical and solidarity finance have become an appropriate instrument for inclusion, but certain risks remain that must be taken into account.

The Roadmap for Moving to a low-carbon economy in 2050 states that the objective of the European Union policy for Energy and Climate is to reduce its CO2 emissions to 80 % below 1990 levels. First, the article explains that decarbonisation within this framework does not only mean a transition towards renewable energy, but also changes in the use of ‘clean’ fossil fuels, in type and location. Secondly, it shows that the investment, infrastructures and treaties proposed to carry out this transformation will lead to the creation of bigger monopolies, and to the regionalization of the European energy space. Finally, we conclude by saying that if measures to offset the power of the monopolies are not applied, the outcome of these reforms will be the creation of energy baronies.