Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Professor Landrum of Chicago’s Loyola University, Business Schools are spending too much effort teaching students how to run a profitable business.
US business schools failing on climate change
April 21, 2017 5.34am AEST
Author: Nancy E. Landrum, Professor of Sustainable Business Management, Loyola University Chicago
Coca-Cola and Nestlé have recently closed facilities, and Starbucks is bracing for a global shortage of coffee – all due to effects from climate change. Climate change impacts every resource used by businesses: from agriculture, water, land and energy to workers and the economy. No business will be untouched.
As a researcher and professor of business management, I have found that sustainable business courses across the U.S. do not align with the scientific consensus that we need radical change to avert disastrous consequences of climate change.
These future business leaders are not being prepared for the climate change challenges their companies are certain to face.
…
Reducing carbon emissions is the most common sustainability goal for companies. Many companies do this by becoming more energy efficient and reducing waste. But, as a whole, corporate sustainability efforts are best described as business as usual, with only small gradual improvements being made. Businesses are simply failing to grasp the deep change that is needed.
…
Companies need to work within this scientific “carbon budget.” There is, indeed, a small group of businesses setting ambitious targets that are consistent with the science.
…
For our research, we studied 51 of the hundreds of business programs in the U.S. We found that when an introductory sustainable business course is offered, it often remains an elective in the business school curriculum. Only a few business schools offer minors, majors, certificates or graduate degrees in sustainability management or sustainable business.
The 51 schools in our study are actually at the forefront of training students in environmental sustainability – that is, compared to the majority of business schools, which do not offer sustainability coursework at all. What we found is that even these schools are doing a poor job of preparing their students for the future.
…
Future business leaders must be equipped with the scientific understanding of how climate change is currently impacting business, how it will impact business in the future and the profound change that is required of business and industry.
Professors of these courses should assign readings that communicate the scientific need for businesses to operate in a more sustainable way to address climate change. Such readings should note that “substantial changes” in policies, institutions and practices are required.
Such education can help shift the focus and motivation for corporate sustainability away from legal compliance and corporate profit toward a need to repair the environment and live in balance with the natural world.
Read more: http://theconversation.com/us-business-schools-failing-on-climate-change-75905
Nancy’s study referenced by The Conversation;
Content trends in sustainable business education: an analysis of introductory courses in the USA
Nancy E. Landrum , (Quinlan School of Business and Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA)
Brian Ohsowski, (Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Purpose
This study aims to identify the content in introductory business sustainability courses in the USA to determine the most frequently assigned reading material and its sustainability orientation.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 81 introductory sustainable business course syllabi reading lists were analyzed from 51 US colleges and universities. The study utilized frequency counts for authors and readings and R analysis of key words to classify readings along the sustainability spectrum.
Findings
The study reveals the most frequently assigned authors and readings in US sustainable business courses (by program type) and places them along the sustainability spectrum from weak to strong. In total, 55 per cent of the top readings assigned in the sample advocate a weak sustainability paradigm, and 29 per cent of the top readings advocate a strong sustainability paradigm.
Research limitations/implications
This study focused on reading lists of introductory courses in the USA; cases, videos and supplemental materials were excluded, and the study does not analyze non-US courses.
Practical implications
The findings of this study can inform instructors of the most commonly assigned authors and readings and identify readings that align with weak sustainability and strong sustainability. Instructors are now able to select sustainable business readings consistent with peers and which advance a weak or strong sustainability orientation.
Originality/value
This is the first research to identify the most commonly assigned authors and readings to aid in course planning. This is also the first research to guide instructors in identifying which readings represent weak versus strong sustainability.
Read more: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-07-2016-0135
What I find most objectionable about Professor Landrum’s point is her demand that sustainability courses be a mandatory component of business education.
Students have the choice of whether to sign up to sustainability electives. Studying sustainability might be useful if the student wants to work for a green champion like Apple Corp. But it probably makes more sense to study business, if the student wants to work for a normal company.
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Hello Pluto…. we have someone for you to meet.
Tsk Tsk Tsk, you nasty business schools, imagine the audacity of actually teaching the precepts of business in business schools, these people obviously haven’t touched their Kool-Aid yet.
C R A Z Y
Without profit a business is unsustainable.
An MBA degree has destroyed more companies than it has created.
G
Yep, here we go again, “carbon” rather than CO2.
As if we’re all inhaling lumps of coal,
Well without profit, there is NO sustainability.
One of the first US colonies eschewed profit, and came close to all starving.
Parasitism only works until you find where you put the fly swatter.
G
Ah, sweet irony. Without profit, there is no tax revenue, and therefore no EPA, fed, state and local governments, government workers unions of all levels fighting for a mélange of advocacy issues, etc., etc., etc.
“I have to go now, Duane, because I’m due back on the planet Earth.”
the only truly sustainable human activity is poverty.
everything else consumes resources, most of which are finite because planet earth is finite, and no process can be 100% efficient. even if one was to totally recycle solar panels to make new solar panels, eventually you would run out of usable materials and be left with 100% waste.
Precisely, the aim of the extreme ‘environmentalists’, getting rid of the world’s population.
Interesting thought experiment. Since we have no experience with this eventuality, we might also imagine a future with new technologies that converted atom A to atom B, dirt to gold, for example (not that gold is all that useful.) But then we’d have the Left inciting panic over the lack of dirt.
without profit, plants and animals go extinct, because they do not have the excess resources required to create the next generation.
when an organism has enough to sustain life and no more, the organism eventually dies without successfully reproducing. When all individuals of a species suffer the same fate, the species goes extinct.
They might as well say, “and forget about capitalism and market-based economies too. The most successful economic scheme ever.”
There may indeed be a coffee bean shortage *some day*, but it ^will not* be due to too much CO2 fertilizer in the air or “too much” milder temperatures.
When it ocurrs, It will be due to market forces shifting prices due to supply and demand. A supply controlled by acres/hectares cultivated, by rational human farmers responding to market price fluctuations that can take several years to adjust to.
It is the same old story, new cause. Crop shortages occurred throughout history. Only now, everything from climatism study authors is attributed to too much CO2. The best explanation is it is simply to ride the climate gravy train grant funding by the study authors. If it is climate change, no critical thought skils needed. The perfect Millenial decision tree.
I wrote a long piece and then realized this is just communism and there is little new a say about it. Don’t be daft, don’t be a communist.
Except this is communism that they market can take care of, how many of these kids do you think will actually be-able to keep their jobs? If they do how long will the business they work for last? Then how many kids will want to go to these schools? The key is to get the government out of financing these universities, then they too will have to bow to the market.
This reminds me of the competition in world-wide gold production near the end of the Soviet Union era, at which time South Africa ranked #1 and the Soviets, cost be damned, boasted they were the #2 producer.
When the Soviet Union fell, they finally put a “sharp pencil” to their gold production and found that fully a THIRD of all the ounces they produced annually cost them MORE to produce than the spot price of gold!
Duh!
In effect, the Soviets were taking precious capital from other endeavors to maintain that coveted #2 spot in world-wide gold production. Consequently, those gold mines that were losing money were quickly suspended because even those silly Russian Commies finally realized it was a stupid thing to do.
I’ve heard that Soviet-era communism fell but in truth it just sneaked into the West and rebranded itself as “sustainability”. And true to its implementation during the Soviet era, it’s all just one big economic Ponzi scheme.
Bob, the problem is when these kids lose their jobs and start whining to politicians that it isn’t fair that their sustainable company went under, while those evil companies that only care about profits continue to survive.
The political answer will be to subsidize those companies that meet the politicians definition of “sustainable”.
Better to cut this monster off at the knees before it has a chance to get entrenched.
Correct. Ctrl-Left.
Rocky Road
Reagan had about a thousand jokes about the cleverness of communist Russian and their economic system. Take few seconds a google them, there are great.
MarkW
Unfortunately of course you are correct and then the market will take care of that too by flushing our entire system down the tubes.
As someone who would rather not go down with the system, I’ll continue to fight.
I wish Hugo Chavez were still alive to see the fruits of his labors.
I wish others had the ability to learn from his mistakes.
(cause or effect? … are they daft because they of the socialist bent, or are they of the socialist bent because they are daft?)
Ooooh, sustainability really presses my buttons. A few profanities follow. Apologies to the mods.
I have news for these goddamned sustainability experts.” You have NO CLUE what is and what is not sustainable. Try to imagine in your feeble little zombie brains what an economist from 100 years ago (1917, Verdun, the Somme, etc.) would have thought was headed humanity’s way. Trying to be futurist is a difficult task, with no possible path to any outcome of any kind. Because you don’t know what the economy of the future is going to be. You don’t know jack. Better you adopt the temporary aberration of humility of ClimateGate hockey team player Ed Cook when he said “we know f**k all.” Do us all a big favor. Close down your stupid graduate schools of sustainability and try to find productive employment.
…applause…
The hilarity of it all is the absence of any “climate harm” to existing businesses, contrary to the author’s claim of current impacts.
Engendering fear in the population of a future harm is a time-tested way to riches.
Included is also lies about what is going on.
Of course it could also be directly proportional to the quantity of Starbucks franchises in the world currently at 24,300 stores.
I think that we shdrumould all jump off the nearest cliff now. Nancy Lundrum hopefully will lead us.
Can anyone really be this crazy?
If everyone follows her warped doctrine, there will be no businesses and no supply of anything – hence her dream will come true.
Hurrr? (The toolman has the only answer.
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
The only sustainability course I can see making any sense in a business school is one dealing with how to handle the myriad of regulation likely to be seen. Knowing that these idiots will throw up roadblocks with every chance can be valuable to know.
With idiots like this, who needs enemies?
I’m very glad one nephew is in a Merchant Marine academy (no snowflakes!) and the other is an apprentice plumber. Nowadays a “college education” is hanging a millstone of idiocy around your neck that will take 30 years to unlearn. Witness the meltdown of the Democratic Party!
With idiots like these, the government needs an enema
20 years ago, when I did my MBA, one of the interesting areas was learning about all the legal forms of organisation that can be set up to run an enterprise. By no means all of them have maximising shareholder value as the overarching goal.
My definition of a sustainable business is one which remains solvent for 20 years or more. There is a difference between maximising profits and creating surpluses, after all. Surpluses are necessary in the real world as every business experiences short-term difficulties and needs a cash buffer to ride it out.
The balance which always has to be struck is between reinvesting profits in the business, retaining a strong cash reserve and paying shareholders dividends. The other balance is between profits achieved and salaries paid to staff and Directors. In a fast-moving competitive environment, reinvestment is essential, even if the investment is significantly in marketing and advertising rather than NPD.
However, it is a uniquely Anglo-Saxon position to assume that only shareholders matter. In other value systems, employees and local community health also matter, and it is not just self-righteous business owners who can create community health….
What is silly in this discussion is the unevaluated postulate that climate change will wipe out every business.
Climate Change wont wipe out every business but this “sustainable” doctrine is designed to do just that.
Check out this document I found on the UN website. Habitat is one of a number of “Sustainability” “initiatives” formulated by the UN.
https://thedemiseofchristchurch.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/unitednations-conference-on-human-settlements_habitat1.pdf
Check page 8 in particular – the high lights are mine.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
It reads like communist wet dream.
Would be good if they ran some courses on how business works for those in government employment.
Wow….
“Sustainable” is Leftist Newspeak for totalitarianism and government command/control economies…
It’s feckless political hacks that ultimately decide what “sustainable” economies can and cannot do through: regulations, tax policies, mandates, price fixing, labor laws, monetary controls, interest rate manipulation, money printing, subsidies, cronism, etc., etc.,
All such totalitarian economies can ultimately “accomplish” is to create awful dystopian economies and societies of shared pain and despair. The feckless tyrants and their cronies live well, but the rest of society suffers from tyrannical oppression and poverty.
Just let the free market decide what and how goods are produced and how limited resources are best utilized and allocated, with all parties protected by just, reasoned, and fair product liability and commercial laws and pollution/production standards. The market can figure out the rest…
God save us from tyrants that wish to save us from ourselves and are “only doing what they think is best”… screw them…
A load of peasants living in mud huts, with the Lord in his Manor and the Clergy in their Cathedrals is “Sustainable”. Sustained for several centuries, in fact.
Not really surprising that the wanna be lords and wanna be clergy want to go back to that time.
Should be a required part of Gaia seminary curriculum.
Cost: benefit analyses are “oh so 20th Century”…
Our Chinese associates love this stuff.
White men teach next gen how to be less competitive with Asia.
My prediction in less than 100-years most giants of commerce will be based in China and India.
Go for it stupid white men!
Without proifit, businesses are unsustainable, There, That’s all you need to say.
You took the words right out of my mouth there.
I was going to post the same comment but would add: Unless the taxpayer subsidizes your losses. In that case you could continue until the taxpayer ran out of money.
Want some bad examples? Look no further than California or South Africa’s “State Owned Enterprises” for tax-eating! Why, the SA Government made losses on owning a diamond mine!
The most “climate Favourable” business is one that doesn’t exist. So it makes sense that they would want to train people to fail in business.
I think a more appropriate course would be on the risks and “sustainability” of doing business in workers paradises like Venezuela.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/20/venezuela-seizes-gm-warning-sign-to-u-s-companies.html
michael
Mike-San:
Yes, one would think the economic collapse of Venezuela would be a wake up call to Leftists, showing clearly their economic philosophies don’t work and are both unethical and immoral… but, alas.
5 years ago, my Leftists friends were singing the praises of the utopian Venezuelan Socialist economy…. Now they say, “it just needs to be tweaked a little”, if they say anything at all….
If we fail to learn the lessons of history, we’re doomed to repeat them…
Well, you gotta admit that Coke and Nestle have taken some hits. But they seem to have more urgent problems than climate change. Nothing is sustainable when the government can seize your assets and generally mess up the economy.
Venezuela just became one of the few countries in the world that does not sell Coca-Cola.
http://www.npr.org/2016/05/29/479913331/coca-cola-halts-production-in-venezuela-due-to-nation-s-sugar-shortage
Venezuelan troops occupied a Caracas warehouse complex used by local food giant Empresas Polar and Nestle to distribute food and beverages, workers and company officials said on Thursday.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/30/venezuela-troops-occupy-polar-nestle-food-distribution-warehouses.html
it’s a snooze call because they see what people will submit to with nothing more than whining.
they know for certain it takes a near death experience for a liberal apostasy.
ask danny pearl, poster boy.
SAMURAI April 21, 2017 at 12:20 am
I agree.
It is 3:30 am as I write this, Later in Venezuela I cannot help but think what will happen there today.
This is one of those instances where it can quickly become everyone’s problem.
How do you fix something as badly broken as Venezuela?
michael
SAMURAI, I still run into leftists who sing the praises of Cuban communism.
Lists, please. If these are “certain”, then the challenges must be well-documented somewhere.
Hint: models are not ‘evidence’.
You need to learn the language, Jer0me.
In this sort of doom-speak, “certain” means “we would like you to believe”. Facts are not permitted to intrude, other than what they deem to be facts which are in these situations … shall we say “flexible”. Documentation is absolutely forbidden. You might try to hold them to the written word!
Fluctuations in coffee production is nothing to do with carbon budget but it is part of natural variability part of climate change. For example, in Ethiopia, the coffee growing region [Gore] presents a 36 year cycle in precipitation [with high rainfall variability during the above and the below average parts] — near to Sudan border [I visited this region].
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
One early freeze is all it takes, if the planet is warming no need to worry about coffee production.
Very many major businesses are investing in sustainability and/or renewable energy… they do this as much to reduce costs and increase profitability as for any other reason.
go look at Walmart’s recent announcements, or Ford’s savings from reducing energy use or Johnson and Johnson, Diageo, Pepsi…
The sad thing is that everyone of Griff’s examples have been disproven.
State and Federal government regulations, tax subsidies and direct payments make any number of idiotic schemes look good, Griffie. Stick to polar bears.
Profitability reducing waste, however, is smart.
Only because they are subsidised by your taxes Griff. Just like handing profitable corporations a months pay packet every year.
That’s PR, Grift.
Anytime that there is news of someone or something not focusing hard enough on Sustainability, and ‘Climate Change’, it is always Good News!
Guess what!
Another generously grant funded study with climate used to generate the dosh!
effing parasites!
!!!!!!!!
If it can be profitable to go green, fewer would be green with envy.
(maybe not but I thought it sounds good).
If the winter that hasn’t let the Northern Hemisphere go yet is the climate you get with the onset of global cooling, then our good professor is already way off the `sustainability’ line. Some are predicting cold times for the next fifty years.
Hasn’t he taken on board the instability in the economy? The 2008 crash is part of a business `natural cycle.’
(It means the economists don’t know what causes it.) It seems independent of the climate and solar cycles. And it’s a company killer.
`Profit’ is the major `sustainability’ supply for any business. Sure, business needs to remain agile in the face of as many changes as possible, warming, cooling, Presidential change, elections, etc but to sacrifice `profit’ for `sustainability’ is to sacrifice `sustainability’ and the company.
I’d say, FOUNDATIONAL sustainability requirement… you do not have a sustainable business model (for long) without it. Money is business nutrition.
This is really about creating a whole new academic industry of Sustainability Studies to match the absurd expansion in tenured posts in climate studies; just to screw things up even more.
As a holder of an MBA, why would I put my equity and capital upfront and risk it all just to be ‘sustainable’? Just whose purpose am I serving here and knowing that I would be wasting my time in pursuit of profit, why even bother trying at all? Imagine if all business like minded person decided to not spend or close shop because it’s not worth it? The economy would be completely ####ed and you can kiss goodbye to a cohesive functioning society as we know it.
Ah yes but with the economic crash and the destruction of the capitalist society comes the inevitable mass starvation and depopulation of the world. A communist/environmentalist dream come true. People living in huts in tune with nature with no strife, no worries, no problems. The dream come true, we will all love each other and mother nature will provide everything we need, No one will have reason to fight over resources and we will all get along and simply discuss our issues away with each and everyone of us happy to do for others first and life will be wonderful again just like it was millions of years ago. See Craig now you should understand why you should think about sustainability first and not silly profits.
It’s true though, about global warming, if it happens, making coffee scarcer and more expensive.
As the world becomes wealthier, demand will rise and even though the land suitable for coffee-growing will increase, it is a labour-intensive activity and people will be less willing to work at it for the small wages they get now.
It’s labour-intensive at the moment because it’s cheaper to hire third-world workers than it is to automate the process. As demand continues to rise and the supply of cheap labour decreases, automation will inevitably occur.
In fact, it’s already happening.
Gnome, I’m sorry, but it is not true that global warming, as modeled in IPCC climate models, will result in “making coffee scarcer and more expensive.” They only say that some areas will get slightly dryer and some slightly wetter and the globe slightly warmer. They don’t, however, consider the beneficial impacts of CO2 fertilization.
Extreme activists twist any projected changes into scary scenarios.
Cola consumption in the US, home of the fattest people on earth, with attendant sugar consumption, is at a 30 year low.
It looks as if the climate change we are to fear is on a win win path, controlling addictive caffeine and sugar consumption while at the same time slowing down Santa Claus, a Coca Cola product.
http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/soda-sales-drop-11th-year/
The biggest problem for business is honesty in dealings, particularly with the vulnerable, neurotic, easily led and exploitable.
The climate change debate is now at a stage where business leaders and educators need to look carefully at the difference between projections of climate and reality before telling students that things are bad for their futures.
The credibility gap just keeps widening.
What Loyola and all Jesuit institutions need to train are ‘Men for Others’,students who want to assist their clients in any way possible, so become people oriented.
They need to be level headed, fair and competent.
Those are the leadership skills needed.
Were Loyola to at least offer a ‘sustainability’ course it needs a ‘red team’ and real debate.
Make it a realistic course and it won’t be ignored as an option.
Teach them how to think.
Make it compulsory and students will attend and serve up what the lecturer wants.
I wonder how an unprofitable business is supposed to be sustainable.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”
Because once it fails it can no longer hurt mother nature of course.
There are whole unprofitable systems, based on Marxism. They sustain themselves, look at Cuba and Venezuela. I wonder why the esteemed Professor is based in Chicago, not Caracas or Havana.
I’ve always wondered why those people who are most enthusiastic about communism never show any interest in moving to a place where they actually have communism.
MarkW
Remember that the further you are from the subject the more you know about it /s
Business should be about maximizing profit but sustainability has them spooked.
Sustainability is the powerful all new mirage, ghost, and imaginary comfort blanket of good intentions, all rolled into one, that every modern business now needs.
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