by Nancy Nachman-Hunt
At the University of Michigan there is a course titled “Systems Thinking on Sustainable Development.” At first glance, that title would suggest the course is being taught in the university’s school of environmental design, perhaps. But it’s not.
It is being taught as part of the core curriculum in the university’s MBA program. One of the course objectives reads: “To foster awareness, sensitivity and literacy regarding global environmental and social change, including challenges such as population growth, persistent poverty, social disintegration, biodiversity loss, climate change, freshwater scarcity, gender bias, megacities, food insecurity, political instability, etc., focusing especially on the roles of industry in relation to these challenges.
Clearly, this isn’t your traditional MBA course. Slowly but surely, it is the type of course that is showing up in graduate business education programs around the world.
“Beyond Grey Pinstripes 2003,” a joint effort of the NY-based Aspen Institute and the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington DC., is the fourth in a series of biannual reports on the greening of business education.
While the report notes that there are only 40 courses like Michigan’s in the 180 business schools that responded to the Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey, other findings are encouraging for the growth of green MBA education. A higher percentage of graduate business schools than ever before, for example, now have required courses in sustainability, ethics and social responsibility. “It’s gone up from 34% (noted in the previous Green Pinstripes report published in 2000) to 45%,” says Meghan Chapple, manager of the business education sustainable enterprise program at WRI. “We also see an increase in the amount of research being done in the areas of social impact and environmental management.”
All the graduate business schools that ranked highest on the report’s list have at least one academic center or institute housed in their business school that focuses on social impact, environmental management or sustainability.
In all, “Beyond Grey Pinstripes 2003” identifies 36 graduate business schools around the world (see chart) that are leading the movement toward educating MBA students in the so-called triple bottom line – one that grows social and ecological returns as well as financial returns. Singled out for cutting edge recognition are George Washington University, University of Michigan, North Carolina, Stanford, Yale and York University, in Toronto.
Those schools are considered on the cutting edge because they either include environmental content in their core courses, have faculty who have done extensive research on sustainability topics, have conferences and seminars that focus on sustainability issues, or include a combination of these offerings.
Why are they changing their curricula to include these topics? “It’s different at every school,” says Chapple. “In some schools the administration is leading the charge. But in general, most of the push for change is coming from two places: students and also a select group of companies that see this as important.”
Students, especially those just entering MBA programs, are showing increasing interest in thinking about the role of business in society, according to Nancy McGaw, Deputy director of the Aspen Institute. Not surprisingly, their interest has been spurred by everything from corporate scandals to the effects of economic globalization.
What is somewhat surprising, however, is that the core group of companies driving changes in postgraduate course work are not those typically linked with environmental or socially responsible causes. Neither Ben & Jerry’s or Stonyfield Farm appears on Chappell’s list. Her list includes titans of American business, including Alcoa (NYSE: AA); American Express (NYSE: AXP); Citigroup (NYSE: C); Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT); and Prudential (NYSE: PRU).
All are sponsors of the Grey Pinstripes project. These companies, as well as other corporate giants such as Ford (NYSE: F); Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ); and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), currently are looking for MBAs who can think outside the box, Chapple says.
“Whether it’s called sustainability education or not, business people are definitely looking for the skills you get from courses in sustainability,” says Anita Roper, director of sustainability at Alcoa. “It gives you the capacity to think holistically, instead of thinking only like an economist or a human resources director or an engineer.”
Roper’s job description is a good indicator of just how much holistic thinking is becoming a requirement in some parts of corporate America. “To put is simply, my job is to integrate sustainability into Alcoa,” she says.
Specifically, that means identifying the measurement tools, such as those included in annual sustainability reports that the company examines, to determine whether it is making progress toward its sustainability goal. Over the past decade or so, such reports have become de rigueur. More than 2,000 companies now issue them, according to Thomas Gladwin, a professor at University of Michigan Business School. The Beyond Grey Pinstripes project recently bestowed its lifetime achievement award on Gladwin.
Inside Alcoa, Roper says, integrating sustainability means developing programs on what she calls a “lifestyle scale” for the company’s employees. “Sutainability isn’t a nine-to-five thing,” she says.
Her job also requires her to examine how to work with Alcoa’s stakeholders in a sustainable manner. That’s important, both Chapple and Roper say, because multinational corporations are increasingly focusing on the needs of all of their stakeholders, especially in the communities where they are located. As a result, it follows that MBA programs wanting to attract students of the caliber that go on to run Fortune 500 companies need to incorporate sustainability education into their course work. According to Beyond Grey Pinstripes, they are.
“What we are seeing is more emphasis on how corporations interact with communities. Business school education is catching up, and a solid trend that’s taking root is the notion of business as a stakeholder in society,” Chapple says.
Roper is convinced that the trend toward the greening of graduate business education is not going to fade any time soon. The skills it teaches are ones corporations find they increasingly need. “Big picture thinking and engagement with different types of people, not just your own with help with that thinking,” she says.
The move toward green MBA programs will not be complete, however, until more universities offer them and until required courses in these programs include the teaching of environmental and social impact management, Beyond Grey Pinstripes poins out. Only then will every student who graduates with an MBA have to examine those issues.
And it’s becoming increasingly important that they do. “At the end of the day,” Roper says, “sustainability is a business philosophy.”
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Visit Beyond Grey Pinstripes for a list of the top schools:
FROM Lohas Journal’s Factbook Edition, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner.
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