Sustainability Becoming Required Course In MBA

Leading business schools in Canada and around the world are adding sustainability to their required MBA curricula. Oxford in the U.K., INSEAD in France, and York University in Canada are some of the business schools with required courses in sustainability. This can be seen as an indicator that sustainability has become a core business competency needed to effectively compete in today’s and tomorrow’s environments.

According to a Bloomberg Businessweek article, sustainability is no longer seen as the province of fuzzy do-gooders. Managing for sustainability is becoming a new bottom line at MBA programs. Leading the trend in Europe are Saïd Business School at Oxford University, INSEAD in France, Rotterdam School of Management in Holland, and the Copenhagen Business School, who have all added required courses in sustainability. Across European MBA programs, there’s a broad push to weave awareness of scarcity into basic coursework. From the Bloomberg article:

The motivation is clear, says INSEAD’s Kleindorfer, a management economist who has worked in risk management for 40 years. “In the past, risk was defined in terms of employment or product-related hazards, such as health and safety,” he says. Classic examples might include keeping workers safe in a chemical processing plant or making sure consumer products complied with safety standards. Now, Kleindorfer says, the world has been transformed. “We have to consider bioterrorism and global warming as potential threats to the supply chain. Geopolitical forces are at work. The picture has changed.”

The world’s resources were once assumed to come from a bottomless well ready to be exploited. Now these resources are recognized to be finite. The effects are felt with their prices in large fluctuations as they become either scarce or their harmful impact to the environment is being regulated. The reality is we must look at the world through the lens of scarcity, says Paul Kleindorfer, professor of sustainable development at INSEAD.

In these MBA schools, sustainability is incorporated into case studies and game playing. They now include limited quantity of raw materials such as metals, oil, food, water and they carry pricing risks. Greenhouse gas emissions also form part of the game play, with emission quantities restricted. These factors are now part of the big risk picture, joining traditional factors like currency risks, liquidity, production quality, etc.

In Canada, most university MBA programs offer at least elective courses related to environmental or social issues. But more and more incorporate required courses in these areas. This includes MBA programs offered at:

• Segal Graduate School at Simon Fraser University
• Schulich School of Business at York University
• John Molson School of Business at Concordia University
• University of Alberta
• Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University

Other Canadian MBA programs with notable sustainability components include:

• Haskayne School of Business at University of Calgary
• Sauder School of Business at University of British Columbia
• Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto
• Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University
• Wilfrid Laurier University
• DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University
• Edwards School of Business at University of Saskatchewan
• Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University

To compete in today’s and tomorrow’s environments, businesses need the skills and knowledge to properly evaluate their sustainability risks and develop strategies to deal with them. More and more business schools are likely to respond to these market realities.