MBA Ranking Highlights Growing Emphasis on CSR

The competition amongst MBA programs and business schools to offer sustainable elements in their courses is growing ever stronger. This is clear from the amount of top business schools vying for the highest spots in the latest Beyond Grey Pinstripes sustainability MBA ranking, published on TopMBA.com.

Released today (Wednesday 21st September), the sustainability MBA ranking produced biennially by the Aspen Institute, crowned Stanford Graduate School of Business as the leading international MBA program to teach students to examine the social, environmental, and ethical impacts of business decisions. This marked a return to the top spot for Stanford’s MBA program after falling to fourth place in the 2009 MBA ranking.

“In all scoring categories used to determine the ranking, business schools have raised the bar,” says Judith Samuelson, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program.

The sustainability MBA ranking

“There are more courses than ever before with content on social, ethical, and environmental issues, more courses about the role of business as a positive agent for change, more exposure of students to this content, and more research published by faculty on relevant topics.”

The remaining top ten places in the sustainability MBA ranking are taken up by: Schulich School of Business in second place; IE Business School in third; Mendoza College of Business in fourth; Yale School of Management in fifth; Kellogg School of Management in sixth; Ross School of Business in seventh; Johnson GSM in eighth; Kenan-Flagler Business School in ninth; and Berkeley Haas in tenth place.

The 2011 Beyond Grey Pinstripes sustainability MBA ranking is the first time since the global economic recession that the CSR focused research has been produced. As a result, the blame that business schools in general received for previously not placing enough emphasis on the teaching of sustainable practices is thought to have had considerable impact on the latest results.

“In the wake of the financial crisis we’re seeing an increased willingness to address [CSR and sustainability] issues,” Samuelson explains. “That willingness is coming from a variety of factors, including student demand, faculty readiness and a desire on the part of business schools to clarify what exactly they’re doing to prepare business leaders to serve the needs of society, such as job creation and energy conservation.”

Future integration of CSR on MBA programs

However, while the 2011 MBA ranking highlights a marked improvement in the amount of emphasis placed on sustainability and CSR in MBA programs, according to the Aspen Institute there is still a lot more that can be done.

“Looking forward, we want to expose more fault lines inside business schools that are teaching courses on sustainability on the one hand but teaching about short term metrics and profit maximization on the other, as if we have several planets to burn and not just one.”

“While I understand the inclination of faculty to focus on theoretical issues, it’s important for leadership at top business schools to unleash faculty talents on problems they know business needs to resolve,” concludes Samuelson.