To advance holistic corporate sustainability in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) requires employees to fully engage in sustainability efforts, which, in return, means to develop employees' action competence for sustainability. Little empirical evidence, however, exists on how to do this considering well-known constraints SMEs face (time, expertise, resources). We present a transdisciplinary project that developed, delivered, and evaluated a sustainability training for the workforce of the Bohlsener Mühle, an SME that has pioneered corporate sustainability in Germany. The training was piloted for the business' apprentices and combined different learning modes to build participants' sustainable action competence. The pre-post evaluation, supported by observations and qualitative interviews, revealed that employees' action competence for sustainability can be fostered through such trainings and is most effective if organizational factors that enable a corporate culture of sustainability are aligned. We conclude that a human-centered and action-oriented approach to training is needed to unleash the full potential of the workforce to advance corporate sustainability.

中文翻译：

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迈向全面的企业可持续发展——通过培训培养中小企业可持续发展员工的行动能力

推进中小型企业 (SME) 的整体企业可持续发展需要员工充分参与可持续发展工作，这反过来意味着培养员工的可持续发展行动能力。然而，关于如何这样做要考虑到中小企业面临的众所周知的限制（时间、专业知识、资源）。我们提出了一个跨学科项目，该项目为 Bohlsener Mühle 的员工开发、交付和评估可持续发展培训，Bohlsener Mühle 是一家在德国率先开展企业可持续发展的中小企业。培训以企业学徒为试点，结合不同的学习模式，打造学员的可持续行动能力。在观察和定性访谈的支持下进行的事前评估表明，员工的可持续发展行动能力可以通过此类培训得到培养，并且如果能够实现可持续发展企业文化的组织因素保持一致，则最为有效。