NYU Stern Declares Sustainability Center Open for Business

New York University’s Stern School of Business (NYU Stern) has announced the launch of its dedicated research center for sustainable business.

The center, which is to channel the school’s teaching and resources in this area under the banner of balancing profit with principle, will kick off with a series of talks and a careers fair in which students can meet with prospective employers who hold an interest in embracing purpose at the same time as innovation.

Plans for NYU Stern’s aptly-titled Center for Sustainable Business have been in the works since last summer when the former Rainforest Alliance president, Tensie Whelan, was snapped up to become its founding director. Its launch now comes with financial backing to the tune of US$1 million from the Citi Foundation, the charitable arm of the banking behemoth. 

NYU Stern aiming to “instill a different mindset”

Whelan expressed her belief that sustainability can no longer be relegated to the sidelines as she outlined NYU Stern’s objectives for the center: “Through new corporate case studies, coursework, research and an ongoing dialogue with the companies that are leading by example, we aim to instill a different mindset in our students.”

The Citi Foundation’s president, Brandee McHale, added that the Paris Climate Agreement signed late last year had “raised the stakes even further to accelerate global environmental and social progress.”

The center comes with an advisory board of senior business practitioners, including the president of Nespresso USA, Guillaume Le Cunff, who will also be leading one of its opening talks - with free sustainably-sourced coffee provided, naturally. Whelan, meanwhile, will provide current students of NYU Stern with an introduction to the center entitled, “Ten Minutes to Save the World.”

Further examples of sustainable business centers

Existing examples of research centers focused on sustainable business can be found at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business and UC Berkeley-Haas in the US, and at Ashridge and ESMT in Europe, but it is the Toronto-based Schulich School of Business that has spent over a decade at the top of rankings – compiled by Canadian firm Corporate Knights – that are designed to showcase the best places at which to gain an MBA focus in sustainable business.