Of course, when pitching to prospective students, the east-coast Australia school highlights sustainability and responsibility as two core values (the third is its Asia-focused location) in curriculum and research; it just sees no need to attach an adjective to the MBA.

“We have made a conscious decision that we believe every MBA should be a sustainable MBA,” says Stephanie Schleimer, Griffith’s MBA director, thrilled that her school is number one for the first time on the Corporate Knights Better World MBA ranking.

“We don’t call our courses fancy names, either, because we believe a course in strategy should be all about responsible strategy and it should be all about total shared values,” she says. “We teach all these different things that we believe should just be the standard.”

Climbing from fifth place on last year’s Better World MBA ranking, Griffith Business School scored higher on every key measure: content, research publications and citations, as well as gender and racial diversity. The school collaborates with all 16 research centres at Griffith University and has responsibility for half of them.

Other schools that did well in the ranking also enriched their course content, research and hiring practices consistent with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.

“We have made a conscious decision that we believe every MBA should be
a sustainable MBA.”

–Stephanie Schleimer, Griffith’s MBA director

For example, Duquesne University’s Palumbo-Donahue School of Business jumped to fourth spot this year from 28th in 2019, partly by adding sustainability to more core courses and recording growth in faculty publications and citations. The school offers a full-time MBA in Sustainable Business Practices program alongside a more conventional MBA.

“I really see a deepening of the focus, and every year we are looking to make improvements to adjust the content to make it better and keep it fresh,” says Karen Russo Donovan, the school’s associate dean of graduate programs and executive education. Moreover, she notes, “we have consistently published cutting-edge research on the broad topics of sustainability, as defined by Corporate Knights, in top journals.”

One of Palumbo-Donahue’s widely cited researchers is Robert Sroufe, a professor of sustainability, operations and supply chain management, whose work on sustainable building renovation has informed the school’s multimillion-dollar renewal. “We have monitors and dashboards throughout the building [gathering data on energy conservation, air quality and other measures], and the students can utilize that information as a living lab for analytics and management,” Donovan says.

Research also explains a rise in the ranking for two Canadian schools: the University of Guelph’s Lang School of Business and Economics and Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management placed sixth and eight respectively, up from 18 and 37 respectively in 2019.

Over the past year, Lang added research chairs in the business of food, entrepreneurship and sports management, with others pending in leadership, finance and marketing. Sustainability is not in the chair titles, but sustainable food systems, social enterprise and gender equity are themes of the research agendas, says MBA graduate coordinator Rumina Dhalla.

Lang students send their own message, too, with 70% enrolled in sustainable commerce, one of three MBA program streams.

When the Rogers School cracked the Better World ranking two years ago, faculty took a closer look at where sustainability appears in curriculum and research. “We were already doing it, but we weren’t keeping track of it, and we weren’t writing it down,” says Donna Smith, graduate program director of the MBA program. “That is what led us to capture what we were doing and move it forward.”

This fall, the school introduced a revamped MBA based on “leading for performance and well-being” in diversity, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship, with students taught about ethical corporate governance, socially responsible decision-making and environmental stewardship.

Ozgur Turetken, associate dean of research, says the school has hired about 50 new research-oriented faculty members over the past five years, with sustainable management a possible focus for future hires.

Despite school efforts, student advocates demand deeper commitments.

Business schools “need to talk about things like the triple bottom line, stakeholder capitalism, impact investing and sustainability reporting,” says Gareth Gransaull, past president of Ivey Business School’s student-run Social Impact Club at Western University. “We also need to introduce and have honest conversations about issues that are more controversial,” he adds, citing tax reform, corporate ethics, anti-racism initiatives and “greenwashing.”

Other schools have updated curriculum. Last fall, HEC Montréal added mandatory content on sustainable development in undergraduate and MBA programs, a spokesperson says, adding that the school is now weighing the possibility of a voluntary commitment by professors to embed sustainable development and social responsibility in all courses.

A comprehensive approach has merit, says Melody Tim Yen, a master of science student in supply-chain management at HEC and the former president of Groupe HumaniTerre, an on-campus sustainability advocacy organization.

“It’s the difference between vertical and horizontal markets,” she says. “Sustainability should be a horizontal component found in each vertical [course topic].”

To find out how the top 40 schools ranked, click here.

Correction: An earlier version of this story listed the University of Guelph’s Lang School of Business and Economics and Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management in fifth and sixth place respectively. They ranked sixth and eighth.

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Ryerson’s Ted Rogers School of Management, which placed first, names sustainability as one of nine learning outcomes reported to the Ontario government.

“We can’t let our students graduate without understanding these [sustainability] principles and how their decision-making is important,” says Cynthia Holmes, associate dean of faculty and academic. The school recently hired 21 professors, adding to its diversity.

Earlier this year, it introduced a sustainability module to the flagship global management course. The school’s curriculum also includes an elective on managing sustainability internationally.

“We are trying to help the students understand that [sustainability] is the only way to maintain profit in the long-term,” says Michael Manjuris, Rogers program chair for global management studies.

At Guelph’s Lang School, in second place, undergraduate students take a mandatory module on ethics in their first-year business program. This fall, Lang introduced a minor in sustainable business for students from any discipline on campus.

Guelph’s MBA graduate coordinator Rumina Dhalla praises students for leadership in organizing conferences on sustainability practices and conducting award-winning research, in one case on reducing single-use plastics in the restaurant industry.

Business schools can only gain with a sustainability focus, she says. “I think the schools who haven’t figured [this] out will do so.”

So how do Canada’s bachelors of commerce rank?

As with our MBA ranking, schools are evaluated on five performance indicators (with weighting in brackets): core course integration of sustainability (30%), faculty research publications on sustainability topics per faculty in calendar year 2019 (30%), number of citations per faculty for those publications (20%), sustainability-focused research institutes and centres (10%), faculty gender diversity (5%) and faculty racial diversity (5%).

You can find the complete breakdown of how schools are scored here:

Better_World_Top 10 B Comms_2020_Full_Results

The post How do Canada’s business undergrad programs rank on sustainability? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

For detailed scores, get the full results here:

Better_World_MBA_2020_Full_ResultsBetter_World_MBA_2020_Full_Results

About the methodology

The 2020 Corporate Knights Better World MBA top-40 ranking examined the performances of 151 business schools, drawn from the most recent Financial Times list of the top 100 global MBA programs; the schools that made the 2019 Corporate Knights Better World top-40 roster; and business schools accredited by AMBA, AACSB or EQUIS and also signatories to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Management Education that opt in for evaluation. Based on publicly disclosed information on their websites, schools are evaluated on five performance indicators (with weighting in brackets): core course integration of sustainability (30%), faculty research publications on sustainability topics per faculty in calendar year 2019 (30%), number of citations per faculty for those publications (20%), sustainability-focused research institutes and centres (10%), faculty gender diversity (5%) and faculty racial diversity (5%).

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“What I am really passionate about is ensuring this transition [to a low-carbon economy] is a just one and there is economic opportunity for everyone in this energy transition,” says De Luna, whose people-oriented outlook is rooted in experience. Growing up in Windsor, Ontario, in a family of Filipino immigrants to Canada, he witnessed the devastating 2008/2009 recession that eviscerated a once-vibrant community dependent on car manufacturing. His father was among thousands laid off. “The theme of economic prosperity really resonates with me, and today, when I look at Alberta and our energy sector, that really resonates with me again,” he says.

As director of NRC’s Materials for Clean Fuels Challenge program, with a budget of $57 million over seven years, De Luna works with research scientists and the oil, gas and petrochemicals industry to identify promising technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. After an exploratory phase ends in 2021, the program will select the most promising candidates that, by 2026, could leave the lab for adoption by energy companies and private investors.

A co-founder of a venture to convert carbon dioxide into ethylene, De Luna likens his NRC role to a venture capitalist who backs promising ideas that generate returns in several years. In his case, he says, he looks for ideas with global impact. “My return on investment is not necessarily a monetary return. It is the potential for greenhouse-gas-emission reduction.”

Jesse Popp
Indigenous Environmental Stewardship Chair, University of Guelph

Wildlife ecologist Jesse Popp likes to see the whole picture in her research.
A member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory in northern Ontario, she blends Western and Indigenous perspectives into her investigations of declining species and fluctuating wildlife populations.

“All my research takes this ‘two-eyed seeing’ approach to weaving together Indigenous and Western ways of knowing,” says Popp, who in September 2020 became the first Chair in Indigenous Environmental Stewardship at the University of Guelph. “Both are complementary to one another, and you get a better understanding of the world.”

One project is a study of declining moose populations across North America and several regions of Ontario. She applies Western scientific methods while gathering insights from Indigenous Elders and knowledge holders on changing land use and environmental conditions.

“Moose are a culturally important species to many First Nations,” Popp says. “We are basically bringing together Indigenous and Western knowledge systems to try and understand why the moose populations are declining and how that is impacting the environment and the communities that rely on moose.”

An emerging scholar, Popp previously held a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Indigenous Environmental Science at Mount Allison University and is a current recipient of a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grant (2018–2023) to study the influence of natural and man-made pollutants on wildlife diversity and populations.

Early in her career, Popp questioned the exclusion of Indigenous perspectives in Western scientific research. That led her to develop Laurentian University’s first course in biology with Indigenous perspectives and history to create a whole picture of the discipline.

Her commitment to “two-eyed” research has only deepened, adding to her perspective on sustainability.
“If we respect our [interpersonal] relations, if we are responsible and if we are reciprocal, we can in turn live sustainably with the earth.” If so, she adds, “sustainability will come naturally.”

Simon Pek
Assistant professor, University of Victoria Gustavson School of Business

Democracy is under siege but count Simon Pek at the University of Victoria as “cautiously optimistic” about the potential to invigorate democratically run organizations.

In that cause, he wears many hats. An assistant professor of sustainability and organization theory at the university’s Gustavson School of Business since 2017, the 33-year-old won the inaugural UVic President’s Chair, the university’s highest academic honour, for contributions to teaching, research and the wider community. He is also co-chair of Gustavson’s Carbon Neutrality Plus committee to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and is a co-founder and board member of Democracy in Practice, a non-profit that promotes leadership capacity-building.

One of his research interests is the role of democracy in unions, worker-owned firms and cooperatives. Though democratic, these organizations too often wind up with entrenched leadership, leaving little room for new, diverse voices. “They have the same paralysis and problems as many societal governments,” he says.

One remedy, he says, is a democratic lottery to recruit new leaders from a pool of interested individuals. The result is a randomly selected group whose members collaborate on decision-making. “It’s less top-down and more horizontal,” Pek says, and enables added input from women and minorities.

His interest in the gig economy has prompted an examination of alternatives to new business platforms like ride-sharing Uber. “That [model] comes with enormous consequences for workers and communities in particular,” he says. An alternative is a worker-run cooperative whose members decide on practices and profit-sharing.

“I want to broaden what we think of as organizations,” Pek says. “Tons of organizations, not just those for profit, can play a massive role in positively addressing the SDGs.”

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Only a few pioneering schools – and this September add one from Canada – have gone “all in” to replace the conventional master’s in business administration with one that blends social justice, ethics and environmental concerns with principles of finance, accounting and marketing to train a new generation of leaders.

That sustainability-themed MBAs represent only a corner of the business education market is a function of employer demand, says higher education consultant David Wheeler, principal at Sustainable Transitions and a former chair of business and sustainability at York University’s Schulich School of Business.

“Until the major employers are specifying this in their human resources recruitment strategies, nothing will change in the business schools because they are simply serving that market,” he says. School websites, he notes dryly, never quote employers saying, “We came to this leading business school because of what they are doing on sustainability.”

But a new MBA in sustainable innovation this fall at the University of Victoria’s Peter B. Gustavson School of Business attracted Midhat Malik, a sustainable transportation consultant in her mid-20s.

A business undergraduate, Malik values bottom-line considerations but not at the cost of a healthy planet. “It is not one or the other,” she says. “It has to be both.”

In returning to school, Malik wanted a program that met her “desire to lead, think creatively and continue my sustainability journey.” With Gustavson’s 16-month program she thought, “This is it.”

In Victoria, she joins an inaugural cohort of 15 students mostly online because of the coronavirus; a program with slightly larger enrolment for those currently employed is also offered.

The new program replaces an existing MBA and targets those for whom business-as-usual is not an option.

“We have fundamental problems in the world, and business and business schools tend to take a back seat to them,” says Gustavson dean Saul Klein. With the new degree, he adds, “we are very much trying to demonstrate [that] the way to be successful is by doing the right thing. There is no contradiction here.”

In a program delivered in blocks by professors from multiple disciplines, students study responsible and ethical leadership in ways that encourage self-reflection, working in teams, and career development. For each learning block, students complete a project tied to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

“That integration within the blocks and across the program is purpose-built and different,” says academic director Cheryl Mitchell. “For me, it is about people understanding their own mindsets, and the capstone project gives them an opportunity to incorporate multiple perspectives to understand wicked problems and complexity.” Future leaders, she adds, need skills to assess broad challenges facing their organizations and must be fluent in the language of diversity and inclusion.

In its redesign, Gustavson sought advice from Vermont’s Grossman School of Business, whose sustainable innovation MBA in 2014 replaced a 40-year-old program. “The world had changed since then, and I felt our programs were really dated,” says Grossman dean Sanjay Sharma.

After overhauling the undergraduate program, Sharma and his colleagues reimagined the year-long MBA, emphasizing business sustainability, global economic trends and entrepreneurial thinking.

The school added or refreshed case studies about local Vermont businesses (including Ben & Jerry’s) and multinationals, recruiting company officials to talk to students. Environmental scientists and lawyers were invited into the classroom to expand discussions beyond the bottom line.

“We are very much trying to demonstrate [that] the way to be successful is by doing the right thing.”

–Gustavson dean Saul Klein

Still, the new degree was not an easy sell, Sharma says. Rival faculties with environmental programs questioned the need, as did some members of the university’s governing board from Wall Street. The proposal “squeaked through,” he says.

Three years ago, though, the same Wall Street leaders returned to Grossman for graduates trained in environmental, social and governance practices, now high-demand areas of corporate reporting. In response, the school added a specialization in impact investing.

“The world changes,” Sharma says wryly.

But is it changing fast enough?

In 2011, when the University of Exeter unveiled its “One Planet” MBA in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund, triple-bottom-line considerations were new to the boardroom, says Jackie Bagnall, director of what is now the Exeter MBA, since the partnership with WWF ended in 2018.

Sustainability remains integral to Exeter’s curriculum, but with increased focus on solutions, Bagnall says. “We know there is a problem, and it is part of a global, systemic issue in terms of environment, society and government, and we now couch our thinking in terms of responsible leadership.”

Currently, the school partners with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a U.K. charity that promotes the social and environmental benefits of the “circular economy,” such as products that generate no waste.

Bagnall hopes the coronavirus will serve as a wake-up call. “What is the world we want to live in, and how does business create that world?” she asks.

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Review the full methodology here HERE.

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