Asia’s Green MBAs: Teaching Sustainability in Business

Where in Asia can you go if you want your MBA course to include Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability in business topics?

The Aspen Institute’s Beyond Grey Pinstripes green MBA rankings, an alternative ranking of full-time MBA programs, sets a global standard for business education with a focus on social and environmental issues. It lists MBA programs based on their scores in four categories in relation to sustainability: relevant courses, study exposure, for-profit impact and faculty research.

The publisher, the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education (Aspen CBE), aims to “equip business leaders for the 21st century with the vision and knowledge to integrate corporate profitability and social value.”

The 2009 Beyond Grey Pinstripes green MBA ranking features mostly schools in the US, Canada and Europe. However, two Asian schools also made it into the list: The W SyCip Graduate School of Business at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in the Philippines, and South Korean based Seoul School of Integrated Sciences and Technologies (aSSIST).

“The power of Asia to create sustainable infrastructure and business models alongside rapid growth in GDP lies in the hands of its business leaders as much as its politicians. Asian business schools can be hugely influential in how the next generation of business leaders think about the integration of financial, social and environmental issues,” says Nicole Buckley of the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program.

While the historical trend in many Asian business schools has been to adopt the historical ‘Western model’ of business education and largely ignore the social and environmental topics, this new cohort of Asian schools is gaining significant ground in the integration of ethics and the environment into courses their students take.

“Finding solutions that have as much financial as ethical motivations will create competitive advantages for globalized Asian corporations in years to come. With increasing numbers of Asian business schools bringing ethics and sustainability into their curricula, we can expect to see a new generation of Asian business leaders that will be a sustainable force to reckon with,” adds Buckley.

Teaching sustainability in business

AIM promotes sustainable growth in their MBA program by emphasising ethical leadership and accountability. The school is looking back on five years of experience in teaching CSR after it became a core module for MBA students in 2006.

“Students study about the shifting roles of business, government and civil society in an operating environment that deals with issues of sustainability, economic development and climate change,” says Ana Khristina S Puatu, program manager at the W SyCip Graduate School of Business at AIM.

As part of the course, MBA students are required to develop green business plans. Amongst this year’s proposals are eco-tourism feasibility studies, the development of a score card for ranking eco-tourism sites and research into ‘green buildings’ and solid waste management services.

“Students [have] opportunities to immerse themselves in projects that require them to present competitive strategies and creative and sustainable solutions with a socio-economic value,” adds Puatu.

Going ‘green’ on an MBA

Milosz Mogilnicki, who was born in Poland but lived in the US for 20 years, graduated from Aim in 2009. He held a major in engineering from the University of Hartford when he joined the MBA program.

“I was challenged many times in class reviewing case studies that exposed our ways of decision-making and the short and long-term effects of these decisions. I got a better understanding of many aspects of doing business, not only of the top line,” says Mogilnicki.

He is now a finance manager at Chart House Energy, a Chicago-based renewable energy company that designs, develops, builds and operates solar power plants.

According to Puatu, companies from the energy industry in particular, have sought AIM graduates for consultancy, research and management positions.

In South Korea, Seoul-based aSSIST’s full-time Global Leadership MBA attracts many students from large Korean corporations, but also some from non-profit organisations.

Jang Yoon-Joo graduated from the MBA program in 2008. She had been working in the charity sector for four years when she felt a need to develop her business acumen and her professional outlook.

A conventional MBA seemed too far removed from the values of an NPO but in aSSIST Yoon-Joo found an ideal combination of social-value focus and professional management education.

She feels her MBA education greatly helps with her job now at the Beautiful Foundation, a community foundation active in sustainable philanthropy in South Korea, where she deals with micro-finance, support and training for low-income, single mothers who want to set up a small business.

“Even if you work for a social enterprise, you need high-level business and management skills,” she says.

The full 2009 Beyond Grey Pinstripes green MBA rankings, produced by the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education (Aspen CBE) are published on TopMBA.com. For more information please sign up for our newsletter, or you can discuss this topic on our MBA forums.