“It’s critical for students to engage with case studies that reflect local conditions, offer context-specific solutions and link them to global discourse,” explains professor Manoj Chiba, GIBS’ MBA director at GIBS.

This shift, he says, reflects a growing recognition of the continent’s unique business landscape, “giving students a deeper understanding of the complexities and opportunities they’ll encounter in their own markets.”

Across the continent,  business schools are embracing local narratives, turning the classroom into a space where African ingenuity and global relevance meet and changing how students see themselves – not just as participants but as creators of a more sustainable and equitable global economy.

“African business students are no longer simply inheriting frameworks from Western institutions; they are now developing the tools to shape them,” says Chiba.

Addressing climate change impacts in Africa

Europe’s colonial rule in Africa may have largely ended by the 1960s, but its legacy has profoundly influenced the continent’s modern education system. Historically, African education, from primary to post-secondary levels, has mirrored Western models while often sidelining Indigenous knowledge and local contexts. But now, African business schools are developing programs that move beyond colonial influences toward a more inclusive and relevant future. This involves not just revising curricula but also integrating African perspectives and addressing local challenges directly – including the impacts of climate change on the continent.

Despite contributing only 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Africa suffers some of the most severe consequences of global warming. From erratic prolonged droughts in the Sahel region and East Africa to devastating floods in countries like Mozambique and Nigeria, these climatic shifts are catalysts for broader socio-economic issues, including migration, health crises and conflicts over dwindling resources.

By 2050, up to 86 million Africans could become internal climate migrants due to deteriorating living conditions, according to the World Bank. And Africa’s youth – 60% of the continent’s population is below the age of 25 – say they want business to respond. According to a 2023 World Economic Forum report, 65% of African youth are interested in sustainable business practices. In this challenging landscape, African institutions have an opportunity to develop sustainable solutions tailored to the continent’s specific needs.

And more are stepping into the spotlight for doing just that.

Today, the shift towards sustainability is not only timely but essential. It goes beyond business ethics to encompass broader challenges relevant to both African and global markets.

– Jackson Omondi, graduate of Strathmore University Business School 

Fostering entrepreneurship and sustainable development

This year, Corporate Knights’ 2024 Better World MBA ranking of the top 40 business schools for sustainability shines a light on this progress, with two MBA programs from African institutions making the cut: GIBS and the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (UCT), ranked 25th and 7th, respectively.

Since becoming a signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education in 2009, GIBS has woven the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deeply into its curriculum, Chiba explains. This commitment “is central to GIBS’s mission to drive businesses to contribute positively to healthier economies and communities,” he says. Post-graduate diploma students, for instance, are required to incorporate at least one of the 17 SDGs into their first-year business projects, ensuring that real-world impact is woven into academic rigour.

The school also offers specialty programs tailor-made for changemakers, including its social entrepreneurship program as well as its Corteva Women Agripreneurs program. In the CWA program, women entrepreneurs in farming engage in a blended curriculum that combines theory, workshops, field immersions and mentorship, all aimed at fostering sustainable business skills. Chiba notes that in a world of rapid change, “business education must be as dynamic and forward-thinking as the environments it seeks to serve.”

UCT’s Graduate School of Business has similarly put local realities at the heart of its curriculum by incorporating in themes like water management and transportation. The university’s Centre for Transport Studies is developing solutions such as electric bus networks to tackle the challenges of growing pollution, a warming climate and rapid urbanization in African cities. MBA students can work directly on projects such as these, using local case studies to understand and address real-world issues.

GIBS and UCT are far from the only African business schools reimagining business education that is rooted in local context while connected to global discourse. While not part of Corporate Knights Top 40, Lagos Business School in southwestern Nigeria is homing in on entrepreneurship and sustainable development in the region’s dynamic tech ecosystem, fields critical to the continent’s growth trajectory. In North Africa, the American University in Cairo is making strides in research on economic development and governance, further cementing the university’s role as a key player in addressing regional challenges.

Jackson Omondi, an East African supply chain expert who graduated from Strathmore University Business School’s leadership program, in Kenya, more than a decade ago, notes how much it has evolved. “Ten years ago, sustainability wasn’t part of the conversation, and the program was built around a narrow curriculum. The focus was squarely on business ethics and leadership, and most participants were sponsored by Kenyan corporations like Kenya Airways,” he says. “Today, the shift towards sustainability is not only timely but essential. It goes beyond business ethics to encompass broader challenges relevant to both African and global markets.”

MBAs serving African climate priorities

African universities are also gaining ground as climate leaders on the global stage, thanks in part to initiatives like Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) Africa, which emerged from last year’s COP27 in Egypt. Launched by PRME Chapter Africa (whose goal is to develop the Principles for Responsible Management Education) and BS4CL Europe, this collaboration promises to redefine business education across the continent by putting climate action at its core.

“BS4CL Africa gives voice, advocacy and action to Africa’s unique requirements as we craft our fit-for-purpose responses to what is fast being recognised as a climate catastrophe bearing down on Africa and the world,” GIBS professor Roze Phillips told University World News in 2022. She noted that it’s in line with the saying “Nothing about us without us.”

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The six founding schools will collaborate on joint courses and research that serve African climate priorities, as well as student competitions and corporate partnerships, all focused on accelerating impact and fostering future business leaders who actively contribute to a more climate-resilient future.

The pan-African collaboration exemplifies the drive toward reclaiming agency and ensuring that African voices dominate discussions on sustainability and development. African business schools are now focusing on outcomes that benefit a diverse range of stakeholders, beyond corporate shareholders. To truly decolonize the curriculum, schools are going beyond diversifying reading lists. They are taking tangible steps to incorporate diverse knowledge sources and educational methodologies from various cultural and philosophical backgrounds.

It’s a sizeable task, as Phillips said in 2022: “We will need to question the very basis of business school education and what business schools stand for.”

Howard Thomas, professor extraordinaire with GIBS, argues that business schools around the world have deviated from their mission of creating public value, becoming too aligned with business interests and maximizing shareholder returns. That also creates an opportunity for African business schools that are redefining responsible leadership.

In rapidly evolving climate emergency, it’s a something more African youth are demanding – and more schools are beginning to deliver.

Shilpa Tiwari is an ESG strategy and communications consultant, and the founder of No Women No Spice. She lives in Tanzania and Toronto.

The post African MBA programs are reclaiming sustainability in business education appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The shift, while heartening, presents a challenge: how best to measure these programs’ commitment to sustainability and the impact they’re having on the world of business more broadly? For this year’s Better World MBA ranking, the Corporate Knights team considered two metrics: what is being taught and where graduates end up.

“Courses are the main input for an MBA program, and the impact that graduates have in the world is their main output,” says Corporate Knights CEO Toby Heaps. “If a business program is excelling on the sustainability dimension of these two measurements, it’s a strong signal they are leading the way fostering holistic business leaders of the future.”

Stonemeijer, who graduated from the University of Exeter’s Business School in 2018, may be one of them. He entered the program with five years’ experience in the fast fashion industry and a growing frustration with its priorities. He’d always had a thing against waste – in his early 20s, he and a carpenter friend launched a start-up, crafting wooden bow ties and tie clips out of offcuts from his friend’s workshop – and wanted to see genuine efforts to reduce it.

Courses are the main input for an MBA program, and the impact that graduates have in the world is their main output.

–Corporate Knights CEO Toby Heaps

“Sustainability is not just one way to approach business,” Stonemeijer says from his London office. “It is the only way.” He found a match in the Exeter program (which ranks 10th overall on the Top 40 and is in the top five for impact grads, see table below); all courses were taught through the lens of how to make business “not just less bad, but more good.”

After graduating, he worked as a consultant on sustainable strategy in the retail and manufacturing sectors before joining the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity founded in 2010 by the eponymous sailboat racer who was prompted by her 2005 solo circumnavigation of the globe to dedicate her life to promoting waste reduction and the circular economy. Stonemeijer manages special projects for the foundation, in areas beyond the classic waste triumvirate of clothes, plastics and food. He says the MBA allowed him to reframe his focus, from one industry to innovation generally, while also introducing him to the foundation, which is part of Exeter’s network of partners.

Alyssa Stankiewicz also encountered her future employer while doing her MBA, at the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business. Raised Quaker in a small town in the Mad River Valley of Vermont, Stankiewicz did a degree in linguistics at a liberal arts college in Virginia before going to work for American Flatbread, a Vermont-based bakery and restaurant that champions local and organic food. For a decade, she baked, gardened and worked her way up to restaurant manager. She was impressed by how well the company treated its employees – offering kitchen staff weekly massage therapy, for instance – and by the central role it played in the community at large.

Interested in this business model, she enrolled in the Grossman program with a mind to possibly starting her own company. As a weaver, she was toying with the idea of an art therapy centre. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine she would land where she has: working for the financial services company Morningstar, where she reviews portfolios, develops qualitative rating frameworks and works to improve transparency on sustainability funds.

Sustainability is not just one way to approach business. It is the only way.

–Tim Stonemeijer, University of Exeter Class of 2018 and special projects manager at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation

“I think about this work as serving my parents, who are not financial people,” she says on the phone from the Morningstar headquarters in Chicago. “Finance can feel exclusive and confusing. It needs someone to clean it up, to decipher the language.”

Stankiewicz attributes the unexpected twist in her career to the finance professors at Grossman, who persuaded her that she had a knack for analysis. With their encouragement, she entered an annual nationwide challenge issued by the renowned Wharton School, the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, to develop a hypothetical investment portfolio that adhered to several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Her group won. The program also introduced her to Morningstar, where she did the practicum that serves as the capstone of the Grossman MBA. She was surprised to discover that its mission – to ensure that everyday investors have the tools to understand where their money is going – aligned with her own values.

Together with Bard College in New York State, the Grossman School tops the Corporate Knights charts for alumni impact. Sanjay Sharma, dean of the Grossman program, says this is very much its goal: to have an impact not only on graduates, but also on their future employers.

As an example, he recalls a phone call he received in 2020 from Steve Phelps, then CEO of NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and a Grossman alumnus. Phelps was looking for advice on how to respond to the discovery of a noose in the garage stall of Black driver Bubba Wallace at an Alabama speedway. The much-publicized incident unleashed a charged discussion about racism in the stock-car racing world.

I was starting to think about the bigger picture. I was looking for purpose.

–Jonaki Majumdar, Maastricht University School of Business and Economics Executive MBA Class of 2023, and global sustainability manager at Siegwerk

After much consideration, Phelps decided to make a plea for diversity and to ban the Confederate flag from all NASCAR racecourses: a controversial move that, Sharma says, ultimately resulted in a significant increase in race attendance. While acknowledging that NASCAR is an unlikely poster child for sustainability, Sharma cites the proverbial sustainability mountain.

“You have to take the first step, then you start to see opportunities,” he says from his office in Burlington, Vermont. In recent years, two other Grossman graduates have joined NASCAR, including the company’s current chief sustainability officer, who has committed to net-zero operating emissions by 2035.

Graduates cite the network of like-minded peers as one of the greatest benefits they derive from these MBA programs. “We have a common outlook,” says Jonaki Majumdar, describing her fellow students at the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, the top European program in this year’s ranking. “We’re certainly not saints, but we’re also not selfish. We’re interested in the more altruistic side of life.”

Majumdar entered the Maastricht program as a self-described hard-core finance professional. With an undergraduate business degree and chartered accountant accreditation from her native Kolkata, she had worked as a risk-management and security consultant for several multinationals. She had been exposed to lots of money and power but felt that something was missing. “I was starting to think about the bigger picture,” she says from her home in the Dutch city of Utrecht. “I was looking for purpose.”

Maastricht’s MBA, which is offered in English and is available only to working professionals, is very international, with more than 50 nationalities represented in its present cohort. Ron Jacobs, the program’s executive director, characterizes sustainability as the “matrix” covering the entire curriculum, which is constantly expanding to incorporate new issues and understandings.

“Leadership is no longer about command and control,” Jacobs says, as an example. “It’s about employee health and creating a sustainable working environment.”

Majumdar is now sustainability manager for Siegwerk, a global ink and packaging firm based in Siegburg, Germany. She works on all aspects of the company’s sustainability strategy, including the circularity of its products, its carbon footprint and compliance with regulations across the many jurisdictions in which it operates. She finds the work vastly more rewarding than anything she did prior to the degree.

She describes the Maastricht MBA as the best life choice she’s ever made. “If I have one regret,” she says, “it’s that I didn’t do it earlier in my career.”

Given current trends, chances are that sooner than later, MBA programs that don’t teach through a sustainability lens will be the slimmer of the pickings.

Naomi Buck is a Toronto-based writer.

2024 Better World MBA Top 40

*As scores are normalized against the top five, the top schools are tied. We used pre-normalized scores for ranking purposes.

**Schools are tied due to having the same final weighted score.

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2024 Better World MBA – Top 10 Large Schools

*Average of 2022 and 2023 MBA graduates

Note: A large school is defined as an MBA program with over 80 graduates a year.

Methodology

The 2024 Corporate Knights Better World MBA Top 40 ranking examines the performances of 174 business schools, drawn from the most recent Financial Times list of the top-100 global MBA programs; the Princeton Review’s Best Green MBA list; the schools that made the 2023 Corporate Knights Better World top-40 roster; and business schools accredited by the Association of MBAs, the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) or the EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development) Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) and also signatories to the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education that opt in for evaluation. Based on publicly disclosed information on their websites, schools are evaluated on the sustainability content of their core courses and can review and request revisions to the analysis. Additionally, schools may voluntarily provide the number of recent graduates employed with impact organizations for up to a 10% alumni impact bonus to their overall score. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story understated the number of nationalities represented in the MBA cohort at Maastricht University.

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