MBAs: Climate features on the curriculum
Students are being made to address global warming and the need for responsible businesses
By Midge Gillies
Published: 19 April 2007
In deepest Hertfordshire, hundreds of miles from the nearest beach, a group of managers is locked in discussion about the future of the fishing industry. They represent every aspect of the trade - from a small family business with one boat to huge conglomerates whose trawlers are scattered around the world. As fishing stocks decline, they all face similar dilemmas. How many ships can they afford to keep and at what level of repair? Will they flout government rules on over-fishing or face an inevitable fall in profits and job cuts?
Ashridge Business School uses this classroom simulation to kick off the "business in society" module of its MBA. Dr Patricia Hind, who helped redesign the course to include corporate social responsibility (CSR), says the exercise is a powerful way to make a point.
"The key is that your business decisions have an impact on the social environment that you work in. So, obviously, if the fishing industry dies then all those jobs are gone. That gives them [the students] a bit of a hit between the eyes."
Throughout the module students are challenged about the part ethics plays in business and the interface between investors, customers and employees who are increasingly concerned about CSR. Selling formula milk to mothers in Africa might be good for business but is it ethical? The module, which lasts two weeks, includes a day on sustainability and global warming.
Two years ago the Judge Business School at Cambridge made its sustainable development course a compulsory part of its MBA. Dr Chris Hope, senior university lecturer in environmental policy at Judge and a respected climate change researcher, says climate change is important to all business leaders.
"It is quite likely to become more prominent in the future unless we're very lucky and it turns out that the issue is not as serious as most people think. But you wouldn't want to be running your business based on a slight chance that something good might happen to you."
There is plenty of evidence that business schools recognise global warming as a hot topic. The most recent report by the World Resources Institute and Aspen Institute showed that 54 per cent of participating schools required students to take at least one course in ethics, CSR, sustainability or business and society. In 2003 the figure was 45 per cent.
But Hope is keen that climate change shouldn't become a passing fad. He urges students to quiz their school about how it's taught.
"Make sure that they treat the topic seriously and that there's a sensible, academic, critical slant rather than just a rehash of some of the latest rather scary pronouncements from outside."
Saïd Business School in Oxford is among those giving global warming greater emphasis. For the first time this year its MBA will include a compulsory "Capstone Course" focusing on how business leaders deal with the challenges of climate change and energy sources.
Professor Steve Rayner is director of the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, which carries out research into how science and technology influence the world, and lectures at the business school. In the past, he taught an elective on the MBA which looked at some of the issues surrounding sustainability. He admits that many students viewed it as a soft option, although it did attract some of the "very brightest students".
Now the subject has greater prominence and Saïd paid particular attention to sustainability when commissioning a recent new building. Faculty discussed hi-tech solutions such as water-less urinals but Rayner dismissed a wind turbine as little more than "tokenism". "Sometimes," Rayner says, "the real world demands clumsy solutions."
Students, too, are keen for schools to show awareness of the issues - by making CSR part of the curriculum and doing their bit for a sustainable future. Net Impact, a worldwide network of MBA students and business leaders, which aims to "use the power of business to improve the world", has 200 UK members and more than 300 in the rest of Europe. Manchester Business School and Nottingham University Business School have chapters (Claudia Frere is chapter leader - see below). One of Net Impact's campaigns is its "Campus Greening Initiative" to improve schools' impact on the environment.
Several European business schools have also signed up to the United Nation's Global Compact. Schools agree to follow 10 principles and introduce more sustainability and CSR issues to the curriculum. But Hind says that it's "down to each individual school as to how much bite they give it". Like national governments, business schools are keeping their options open.
'I wanted to expand my knowledge and understanding of CSR'
Claudia Frere, 35, is studying for a full-time MBA in corporate social responsibility (CSR) at Nottingham University Business School. Previously she was director of client services at volunteermatch.org
I decided to do an MBA because I wanted to grow professionally and personally. Professionally, I wanted to expand my knowledge and understanding of CSR from an academic standpoint. What I've experienced so far on the course has been fundamental business principles and now the focus is more on CSR and related issues.
We debate in class how to make shareholders convinced that global warming is something they should pay attention to. You have to tell them how it affects cost and profitability. It's all interdependent.
We have non-CSR folk on CSR modules. They come to it with different perceptions that make the learning all the more valuable. You need to have a range of viewpoints; can you imagine how boring it would be if everyone agreed and would you really learn much?
We did a really good session on global climate change. We were really able to see both sides, not just from your own bias - whether that was political or geographical. You could see the really complex issues. All MBA students should have some exposure to CSR issues.
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