While numerous studies examine environmental, ecological, or sustainability awareness (or consciousness), a comprehensive understanding of the ongoing cognitive process is still missing. Therefore, we investigate how business and management students perceive, position themselves, and react in response. This study relies on the written production of 447 reflective and retrospective micro-narratives centered around a personal and intimate epiphany in response to the new climate regime. The analysis of this discursive material leads us to conceptualize the notion of ‘Anthropocene Epiphany,’ considering it as a complex cognitive process that deeply engages individuals’ lived experiences. (i) a cognitive phenomenon triggered by a positive feedback loop of encounters with intimate climate change phenomena, (ii) fostering a progressive accumulation of realizations that make the climate imperative meaningful and heighten awareness, and (iii) culminating in a rupture with one’s former reality. Finally, we propose teaching implications for effectively integrating climate change and the Anthropocene into business school curricula.
