Story by Mars Reilly

Sarah Ku, PhD, a newly-appointed assistant professor of sustainable business management at Loyola, joined the SES community this fall to serve as a bridge between the fields of environmental science and business. In order to better understand this exciting addition to our university, we sat down with Professor Ku to get to know her and her work better.

Sarah Ku, PhD, holds a joint appointment in the School of Environmental Sustainability and the Quinlan School of Business. She is teaching her first courses here at Loyola in sustainable business management and [introduction to] circular economies. Her dissertation research entitled Stakeholder Governance: Empirical and Theoretical Developments was recently accepted into the Honor Roll of Responsible Research in Business and Management, an exciting recognition from a highly respected organization.

Before joining Loyola, Ku finished her PhD in international business and marketing at Georgia State University in Atlanta, making this her first year as a professor. Chicago appealed to her for its diversity of people, cultures, and foods, but Loyola’s sustainability mission was the biggest draw. “To me, it seems like Loyola is ‘walking the walk’ in terms of sustainability,” she said. “Not only is there sustainability in their curriculum, but they’re also doing a lot operationally on campus.” 

Ku explained that before becoming involved with an organization, it’s important for her to evaluate how it operates internally and how it implements the sustainable actions it markets. Loyola seemed an excellent fit for Ku’s values in sustainable business operations. She is excited to be involved with an organization that has made sustainability a top priority and whose values align so closely with her own. 

Though Ku’s academic career focus has been on business, her passions and research lie within its intersections with sustainability, specifically with regard to incorporating sustainable action into business models and practices. This interest grew out of her interest in food, particularly discount produce. Her first forays into sustainability eventually led her to travel to China as part of WWOOF, Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Ku spent six weeks on an aquaponics farm just south of Shanghai learning about sustainability and wondering why aquaponics was not more frequently incorporated into food systems, especially within urban settings. Additionally, Ku’s time traveling around Asia increasingly exposed her to the use of insects as sources of nutrition, something she knew she wanted to pursue further in her research and in relation to her business background. 

“Marketing is a great tool to be able to change people’s understandings about things that are better for the planet, such as using insects as a source of calories,” Ku explained. However, she’s aware that there are a lot of perceptions surrounding the consumption of insects that need to change, even if we know that it makes economic sense from a business standpoint and environmental sense from a sustainability standpoint. Too often, Ku believes, “underleveraged opportunities go unnoticed in business and sustainability because we are so used to going with the status quo,” a phenomenon that Ku seeks to rectify in her work. “Our planet is suffering, so we have to figure out new things—and there are a lot of exciting, creative ways that we can still have business without harming the environment and exploiting populations.” As members of the Loyola community, we are lucky enough to see these kinds of practices in action every day, but Ku explains that though awareness of the need for sustainable business methods is growing, “it’s not quite standard yet.” Luckily for us and our planet, Professor Ku is leading the way here at Loyola, linking SES and Quinlan and helping to shape new leaders within the student body. 

This semester, Ku is focusing on teaching (and getting honors from prestigious organizations), but she looks forward to getting involved with other SES faculty members on future projects. The way the school is structured under the umbrella of sustainability is exciting to her as it allows for interdisciplinary projects between departments. “If you stay within the boundaries of a discipline, you’re going to miss out on some really valuable perspectives,” Ku says. Her appointment as a bridge connecting the schools of sustainability and business will promote greater cross-disciplinary collaboration and help to spark new ideas.

As a new Chicagoan, Ku has been using her free time to scope out the community and what it has to offer. She loves finding new jazz clubs and trying new foods, and the Loyola farmers market interns report seeing her every weekend supporting their endeavors. In her office, Ku has several projects going at the moment, including raising two different colonies of mealworms, the first of which are for consumption and the second of which Ku is using for their enzyme that is capable of breaking down styrofoam. She also plans on sprouting microgreens and making kombucha that will be available for sampling should any visitors to her office be interested! 

Sarah Ku makes a great addition to the SES and Quinlan, and we can’t wait to see where her time at Loyola takes her.