Rate My Professor Sara Walton

Professor Sara Walton is Professor and Head of the Department of Management in the Otago Business School at the University of Otago. She holds a BA, MCom, PGDipTour, PGCertTertT, and PhD, all from the University of Otago. Walton teaches and researches in the area of business, sustainability, and the natural environment, with courses including MANT337 Organisations and Sustainability and MANT437 Organisations and Sustainability. She developed the Master of Sustainable Business programme and delivered her Inaugural Professorial Lecture in 2024 titled Transforming business practices for sustainability.

Her research interests include business responses to climate change, climate action, risk, and net zero; ecopreneurial businesses in New Zealand; natural resource-based conflicts; and constructions of sustainability. Expertise areas cover carbon footprints, industry readiness for climate change, environmental sustainability innovation, sustainable low-carbon transitions, environmental conflicts, and work in changing futures. Walton has led funded interdisciplinary projects such as the Energy Cultures programme on New Zealand SMEs; Australian Aid energy transitions in Vanuatu; OceanaGold Macraes Gold Mine land use; BRANZ climate change readiness in construction; Building New Zealand's Innovation Culture under the National Science Challenge; MOTU Just Transitions Guide for MBIE; MPI/FMAG GHG emissions decisions; Stuff Climate Action Report Card; online Climate Action Tracker for Aotearoa New Zealand; Āmiomio Aotearoa circular economy; and XRB climate risk disclosures. Key publications are Enhancing Climate Decision Making: Insights from early adopters of climate risk disclosure (Policy Quarterly, 2024), Climate change readiness in the construction sector (BRANZ SR490, 2024), The Journey Metaphor and Environmental Sustainability (Organization, 2006), and 30th birthday celebrations: Views from the top about future management research and practice (Journal of Management & Organization, 2026). She publishes in journals, media like Newsroom and The Conversation, and has a regular sustainable business column in the Otago Daily Times. Walton is President-Elect of the Academy of Management Australia and New Zealand (board six years) and co-developed He Kaupapa Hononga, Otago's Climate Change Network (steering committee member).