The organization, which publishes an annual guide profiling MBA programs commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility, has seen a 171 percent increase in the number of traditional MBA programs offering sustainability coursework in the five years theyve published the Business as UNusual guide, Davies said.
This year, the Waste Management Phoenix Open had an ambitious goal: go completely zero-waste. Through comprehensive waste diversion and some clever upgrades, this year&8217;s tournament might just be the &8220;Greenest&8221; Show on Grass.
More particular to Presidios program, the school emphasizes hands-on, experiential learning and requires students to complete four consulting projects during their time at the school. Students are paired with either a company or nonprofit and apply their sustainability and business expertise to real-life projects in the areas of operations, marketing, finance and strategy.
Starting this week, students from more than 600 colleges will square off to see who can reduce, reuse and recycle the most on-campus waste.
Drane is part of a growing number of professionals who pursue a Masters in Business Administration to advance their sustainability careers and hone their skills for implementing environmental programs. Many of these eco-minded individuals are turning to dedicated green MBA programs like the Presidios degree or traditional MBAs that offer a strong sustainability or corporate responsibility focus.
Were not offering an MBA program with a sustainability concentration. Were offering an MBA with sustainability woven throughout the entire curriculum from beginning to end, she says.
executive mba in university of chicago Is a Green MBA Right for You?,I was passionate [about sustainability], but I wasnt educated enough about it, Drane says.
In the Centers popular Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility and Projects class, teams of students work directly with major firms like Hewlett-Packard, Levi Strauss & Co. and Wells Fargo to address real-life pressing business issues and to plan and implement CSR projects.
[Students] can tailor their coursework to focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, says Jo Mackness, executive director of HaasCenter for Responsible Business. They have to take Haas core classes, but they can place an emphasis on CSR and sustainability.
So whats the difference between a dedicated sustainable MBA program and a conventional MBA with a sustainability concentration?
The list of dedicated green MBA programs has grown over the last few years from the Presidios program to theBainbridge Graduate Institutes MBA in Sustainable Business andColorado State UniversitysMBAin Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise. But the number of traditional MBA programs that offer sustainability-related curricula is also on the rise, according to Maggie Davies, deputy director ofNet Impact, a network of business professionals and students who want to harness the power of the private sector to achieve global sustainability.
READ: Degrees in Sustainability: Risky or Worth It?
The Alcoa Foundation and Keep America Beautiful provided recycling bins, as well as training and tools for &8230;
Alexis, thanks for this informative and balanced article. The sustainability-based MBA concept has existed for about ten years, and sustainability/CSR concentrations within the major conventional programs are even newer on the whole, so public awareness and knowledge about such programs is still in its inncy.I generally agree with the distinctions you draw, but want to add the following extra insights based on five years of experience launching and running our "MBA in Managing for Sustainability" at Marlboro College Graduate School in Vermont (the first program of its type on the East Coast):- Caring, respectful, collaborative community is a central feature of the small cluster of sustainability-based MBA programs (BGI, Presidio, ours, etc.) with a flavor, philosophy, and an impact you simply wont find in conventional or 100% online programs. Explaining it would take longer than is appropriate here, but its related to the world views and common understanding among the innovators who created this kind of MBA program (who did not come from the world of B-schools, I might add), and contributes to a very distinct experience for the student. Alumni remain parts of remarkable communities that sustain them after graduation. Its different. You know it when you see it. I encourage anyone who is curious to visit one of the sustainability-based programs intensives/residencies to see it for themselves. I would be glad to discuss it with you.- The conventional schools that have added sustainability concentrations may do it with good intentions, and with the involvement of thoroughly committed culty, but these are still add-on bundles of several required courses that are philosophically and ideologically at odds with the rest of the curriculum, and the world view of the core curriculum (i.e., the traditional, fragmented, discipline-based departments) still dominates. If you are a very self-directed, tough, and mature person who understands and can overcome this tension, and build a small community of like-minded people as you move through your MBA studies despite what the majority thinks, then you will do fine anywhere, but for someone who is looking for true integration and a total commitment to the values underlying sustainability, you would do much better in the sustainable MBA programs.- Finally, I have to respectfully but thoroughly disagree with the quote by Maggie Davies of Net Impact toward the end of the article. Im not surprised she said this, because the vast majority of Net Impacts chapters are in conventional business schools, and good relations are important for Net Impact, but to say that a sustainable or green MBA may be ideal for people who are interested in a more niche career path, such as sustainability consulting, but not for traditional functional roles, or social entrepreneurship, completely ignores the job market and where sustainable MBA grads are going. Very few as a percentage go into corporate CSO/CSR positions or consulting, mainly because such jobs are few and r between, whereas many go into social entrepreneurship, start entrepreneurial businesses, or work for corporations across many functions where sustainability is one but not the only driver. My colleagues and I see our form of MBA as appropriexecutive mba in university of chicagoate for many kinds of business careers, given where the world is heading, and so do our alumni and employers. Indeed, we challenge the conventional MBA programs with add-on concentrations to prove that what they offer is in step with the 21st century, and not a patch to a model that belongs executive mba in university of chicago Is a Green MBA Right for You?more in the last century.Ralph Meima, MBA, PhD. Director, Marlboro MBA in Managing for Sustainability.Brattleboro, Vermont, USA.
Alexis, great overview of Green MBA offerings but you missed The Green MBA at Dominican University of California (search google for "Green MBA", first on the list). The Green MBA at Dominican University of California was the first graduate program in sustainable enterprise in the nation.
Haas also gives its students opportunities to partner with small businesses and budding entrepreneurs at the schoolsLester Center for Entrepreneurship. Through the Centers Clean Tech to Market program, business students build out the strategy to take the new clean technology, developed at theLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to the marketplace.
Presidio also offers a dual MBA/Masters in Public Administration (MPA) in Sustainable Management to students interested in both the public and private sectors.
Three years ago, Kate Drane was living in Chicago, working at a law firm as a recruiter and environmental initiatives coordinator.
Earth911 is an environmental services company that addresses solutions for products end-of-life for both businesses and consumers.
Across the San Francisco Bay,UC BerkeleysHaas School of Businessis an example of a top-notch business school that offers coursework and projects in sustainability and corporate responsibility rather than a dedicated green MBA.
Though Presidio students take classes that sound like they came from the standard MBA course book Managerial Accounting and Micro- and Macroeconomics students learn how these topics relate to environmental and social responsibility during their lessons.
While every degree is different, Jennifer Taylor, chief operations officer at the Presidio Graduate School, sums up the distinction when describing her schools MBA in Sustainable Management.
While attending a graduate school ir, she happened to stop at the booth for San FranciscosPresidio Graduate Schooland learned about their MBA in Sustainable Management, a business degree integrated with environmental principles. Realizing this program was exactly what she needed to help her become a more effective sustainability leader, she applied to the school, and within a few months, moved to California to start her green MBA.
Now Drane, who graduated from the Presidio last year, is launching a green business venture with four of her fellow Presidio alums:The Can Van, amobile beer canning servicethat aims to bring Bay Area craft beers to a wider audience, while reducing the beverages environmental impacts.