As more and more business schools offer Green MBAs and more and more students sign up, the real question is whether this is enough to make business sustainable?
By Elaine Cohen
We’ve all been there. Fresh out of university, starry-eyed, idealistic and eager to make our unique impact in our chosen company, only to realize, after a few short years, that, by and large, the system changes us rather than empowering us to change it. No matter how strong our resolve, no matter how compelling our passion for change, once we have learned the ropes, the ropes eventually serve only to constrain us. So why should we believe that Green MBAs will make a difference? The very nomenclature “Green MBA” smacks of public relations and MBA-wash, as though it is the color, not the quality, of the MBA program that confers preferential status aligned with the popular buzz of the times. The chances that Green MBAs will save the planet may be as likely as an automatic reversal of global warming in time for Christmas. Instead of Green MBA grads becoming our saviors, perhaps they will be just another group of victims of a subtly Friedmanite culture.
The number of business schools offering Green MBAs today is on the rise, and rapidly. Beyond Grey Pinstripes, managed by Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, probably the most authoritative of assessments of Green (and Sustainable) MBA options around today, screens all business schools offering greenish content in their MBA programs. In 2009, 149 business schools or universities from 24 countries participated in the Beyond Grey Pinstripes research and results show that the percentage of schools requiring students to take a course dedicated to business and society issues has doubled in the past 10 years. Business schools are growing a body of green-minded leaders who have the knowledge to make our world a better place through the way they act in organizations.
Conveniently beginning with the letter A, Antioch University New England is at the top of the list, alphabetically, of these forward-thinking institutions offering a Sustainable MBA. Students learn about ethics, the triple bottom line and take part in a corporate-community activity to get a feel for the way things are done in the real world. David Morrill, an Antioch alumnus, says, “I saw the influence and power business has, and I decided I wanted to use that influence to create positive change in the world.” And clearly, the potential exists. David, as other Antioch alumni, are starting their career with impressive motivation and by the end of the program, a large body of knowledge and a passion to put this into practice. Green MBA programs position their offerings as ones which create leaders in practice. Polly Chandler, Chair, Department of Organization & Management at Antioch, writes, “Our program prepares our students to be skilled at leading the changes necessary to promote fiscal responsibility, organizational sustainability, environmental advocacy, and social justice.” York University’s Shulich School of Business tops the Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking, with courses taught by leading professors such as Andy Crane and Dirk Matten, having been “an early pioneer in terms of integrating social impact management and environmental management into its core curriculum and throughout its business courses.”
There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. The Dominican University of California’s Green MBA Blog offers positive examples of how grads give back (contribute to the community) or drive new ways of doing business (green start-ups etc.). Some of them might even have taken the MBA Oath, which now boasts over 4,000 signatories, an acknowledgment of the responsibilities and promises by MBA grads to maintain responsible business practices once in the driving seat. According to Ellen Weinreb, the demand for green jobs rose by 33% at end 2009, so Green MBAs have more opportunities to put their money where their mouth is. In the recent survey conducted by the UN Global Compact and Accenture, 93% of 766 CEO’s surveyed say that “sustainability will be critical to the future success of their companies,” which could lead us to assume that these CEO’s plan to invest in appropriately qualified resources to take them to the next level.
Despite all this good news, writes Giselle Webrecht, author of The Sustainable MBA, “sustainability remains on the fringes rather than at the core of most serious business education.” This being so, it seems that until every MBA program is built around the concept that business is worth teaching only when it is sustainable and a critical mass of MBA grads emerge with collective insight and capability strong enough to overcome the dominant single bottom line, their admirable resolve may remain at the level of academia. Ranking of Green MBA programs should be based not on their inputs (the quality of the program or level of mandatory sustainability content) but on the quality of their impact (the actual number of graduates who subsequently play an active role in business to advance sustainability).
The question remains, therefore, as to whether Green MBA grads will change the face of business or become submerged in the way business predominantly operates. This, regrettably, does not depend solely on them or on the number of business schools offering the Green option. It depends on a large and growing body of companies who take sustainability seriously as a core business philosophy, and who recognize that the practice of sustainability requires professionals with appropriately tailored business education. What is needed is a process of stakeholder dialogue between business schools and corporates to ensure curricula are designed to meet the needs of green, clean, sustainable business. What is needed alongside the MBA Oath, is a Business Oath, where companies commit to giving preference to grads coming out of Green MBA programs in their mainstream business, and not just in niche jobs because Walmart needs improved supply chain data or the BP oil spill aftermath is requiring a clamp-down on safety and process management procedures. Green MBA grads need a place to be green in mainstream business functions or their desire to save the planet may remain just that.
Elaine Cohen (elainec@b-yond.biz) is a Sustainability Consultant and Reporter at Beyond Business and blogger on sustainability reporting. Please send questions or comments about this article to the CSRwire editorial staff (editor@CSRwire.com).
