As the world faces progressive and interconnected global crises and conflicts, the educational expectations set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are in jeopardy. With the COVID-19 pandemic in its third year, the war in Ukraine has exacerbated the food, energy, humanitarian, and refugee crises, all against the backdrop of an unfolding climate emergency. The aim of this research is to analyse the challenges faced by postgraduate programmes in training human talent for sustainable development on the basis of Grounded Theory. To do so, we have used a dialogical intervention through the complementary experiences of authorities of higher-education institutions that live day by day for a fair, quality, and sustainable education. With a naturalistic qualitative method, where the hermeneutic analysis procedure is structured in five phases, and with data from key informants from 9 countries, 20 interviews are obtained with key informants in Latin American and Spanish universities during 2021, according to inclusion criteria such as: belonging to a higher-education institution, with a doctorate degree, with more than 10 years of experience in management, and training in postgraduate programmes. The data are processed through ATLAS.ti9, which allows for the analysis of the key informants’ discourses. The findings show that the university institutions that currently offer postgraduate programmes are considering improving the quality of education; the first challenge is to redesign the curricula according to the demands of the current and future world, incorporating technological resources and knowledge of the environment; inter- and transdisciplinary curricula that form enterprising postgraduates with a solid ethical life project; critical, complex, and systemic thinking.

One of the particularities of companies with a social purpose is that, through their business model of B companies, they have incorporated into their processes the necessary mechanisms to obtain, simultaneously, the profits to ensure the existence of the organization in the market. At the same time, social value is generated, which is necessary to address the problems of the social crisis caused by COVID-19 and the environmental problems affecting the community. The current global health and economic crisis has opened up the possibility of adopting business model B and focusing more on the individual. Based on the grounded theory method, we have examined 3500 B Corporations in Latin America, of which 57 were examined in 10 countries listed in the Directory of B Corporations for Latin America. The main conclusions are that B Corporations dedicated to tourism through responsible entrepreneurship develop a more inclusive, sustainable and environmentally friendly economy for the benefit of society, go beyond the notion of CSR and move away from traditional business, as B Corporations combine social development and economic growth.

COVID-19 caused a major shift in consumer behavior online at companies that focused on offering products to a traditional and more diverse (LGBTTTQI+) market. For this reason, an online survey was carried out through the digital platforms Facebook and LinkedIn in the last months of the pandemic (COVID-19) to determine how interpersonal influences and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) affect the intention to buy back online products and services, even after the pandemic. Data was collected from 384 consumers and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), confirming that both interpersonal influences and electronic word of mouth explain repurchase intention, and that electronic word of mouth had the greatest influence. Theoretical and practical implications include insights for social media marketers, and evidence of a dramatic shift in the use of technology by consumers from COVID-19 to new market segments. The findings showed that the behavior of consumers on these two social platforms was inclined to more diverse user; 50% of the users who responded to the survey were oriented to a more socio-diverse community.

A sustainable university must educate its academic collaborators and its interest groups, focusing on the key dimensions, such as economic growth, respect for the environment and carrying out energy saving measures, and efficiency and reuse of resources. The aim of this research is to show the tendencies of postgraduate courses in the training of human talent for “Sustainable Development” based on grounded theory. The methodology is approached from the qualitative naturalistic perspective, where the hermeneutic analysis procedure is structured in five phases with data from nine countries obtained from 20 interviews conducted in the year 2021. For this, a dialogical intervention has been used through the complementary experiences of rectors, deans and specialists with doctoral degrees who are immersed in postgraduate programmes in Latin American and Spanish universities, safeguarding the identity under ethical criteria. The main findings show that this human capital that forms part of the universities through their postgraduate programmes is currently considering redesigning their educational programmes to contribute to sustainable development, not only academically but also through their educational model. The main evidence shows that today more than ever there is a need for change, a need for a new human resource that responds and aims for a triple balance: environmental, economic and social.

Environmental and climate change issues are a consequence of human actions that, whether consciously or unconsciously, damage the environment. The main objective of this research is to develop an instrument to measure environmental awareness levels among citizens. The developed questionnaire consists of 34 items, adapted and grouped into four dimensions: affective, cognitive, conative, and active. The main distinction of this questionnaire from prior models is its aim to assess environmental awareness levels applicable to any citizen. The scale’s reliability is demonstrated by high internal consistency (α = 0.965 and Ω = 0.958). The key findings on scale performance are evident in the scale’s validity, supported by a confirmatory factor analysis that shows a KMO index of 0.981, a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < 0.01), and a matrix determinant below 0.001. The maximum likelihood model shows an adequate fit (p < 0.01) and identifies four factors, which together explain 70.134% of the total variance: the first factor contributes 53.075%, the second 12.097%, the third 2.962%, and the fourth 2%. An important finding is the instrument’s high consistency and robustness for evaluating environmental awareness in citizens, offering a reliable and specific tool for environmental studies in urban contexts.

Suicidal behaviors and constructs are putting at risk the accomplishment of Objective 3 of Agenda 2030 for sustainable development in Spanish-speaking countries. The current study’s principal objective is to explain the presence of suicidal ideation and deaths by suicide as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spanish-speaking countries based on a review of the scientific literature. The PRISMA model was used as the main method while considering the criteria of periodicity, language, typology, and country in order to choose the 28 articles that were analyzed from the following three databases: SCOPUS, Web of Science, and ProQuest Coronavirus Research Database. Suicidal ideation and death by suicide exhibited a growth trend during the COVID-19 pandemic, including post-pandemic, especially in kids, adolescents, and young women of university age belonging to lower socioeconomic strata and presenting risk factors like living in rural areas, poor mental health, unemployment, and family death due to COVID-19.