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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Eric Worrall:
It seems that somebody should inform Chicago’s Loyola University that the sustainability of a business is determined by its profitability and nothing else. Profitable businesses make money so grow and unprofitable businesses cease to exist.
Circumstances constantly change so long-term businesses maintain their profitability by adjusting to alterations of supplies and/or demands. Other businesses come into being and close as circumstances change to permit or remove their profitability. Any “potential climate change challenges” are merely potential causes of alterations of supplies and demands.
Providing Loyola University with this elementary economic information would remove all reason for the university to provide the course operated by Prof Landrum so the university could free her to do something more useful such as flipping burgers.
Richard
A lesson in capitalism thanks Richard.
Bob boder:
I stated basic economic principles, not economic principles.
Richard
I intended
I stated basic economic principles, not political principles.
Sorry.
Richard
Great points.
It’s very simple. Investors won’t invest in businesses that put sustainability (particularly this warped version of sustainability) before profit.
Why does the world increasingly remind me of the period in Harry Potter when Dolores Umbridge was the emissary of the Ministry of Magic?
To sustain a business you need a profitability – or guns. That’s what the Left recommends.
Curious George:
Guns don’t enable business profits except for organised crime. The Left is not in favour of organised crime: libertarians (e.g. Al Capone, the Kray twins, etc.) practice it.
Richard
Richard, look at Venezuela where hungry rightists get killed while looting bakeries.
This makes perfect sense considering how many environmental groups are focusing on profits.
In 50 years what is now considered essential will be irrelevant; thank you capitalism.
“Sustainable” is a very sketchy and vague concept when applied to something other than the
fish industry. It has no logical connection to CO2 emissions and one can argue that it is meaningless in a field where technology is involved. It also has no value economically as there are no “sustainable” power plants : solar panels die of old age at an early age, as do windmills. So
the economic argument in favor of wind/solar due to the sustainability of wind and sun makes no sense when the “unsustainable” oil and natural gas reserves outlast the solar panels and windmills
and produce far cheaper energy – money saved that could be used for improving the human condition. And in the case of uranium/Thorium nuclear reactors, their fuel source will not be depleted in any foreseeable future, so how can a “sustainable” fuel source have any advantage
here either, even disregarding economics? A nuclear reactor has a sustained lifespan at least three times longer than a solar panel or wind turbine’s practical lifespan. And its geographical environmental footprint is thousands of times smaller than equivalent solar/wind farms. So geographically, solar/wind does nor sustain our land area even remotely as well as nuclear (or gas or coal) plants. Wind/solar will require more and more land area as energy requirements increase, while adding additional nuclear/coal/gas power plants require very little additional land area, sometimes none at all, when added to existing plants. Environmental extremists toss around “sustainable” as if it were some Holy Grail, but can’t even make a case for prefering it to “unsustainable” power sources, from any viewpoint.
One of the foundations of sustainability is doing more with less. That is already happening. Exhibit A is the smart phone.
The process is called ephemeralization or dematerialization. Here’s an interesting example:
We are moving toward sustainability naturally. The perverse thing is that, if we bork the economy by imposing ‘sustainability’, we will become less sustainable. The technological innovation we need to improve sustainability requires a healthy economy.
You are confusing innovation, which is laser-focused on profitability, with “Sustainability”, which is an ideology rooted in Ehrlichian nonsense, with the added idiotic notion that we should “save energy” because it’s good for “the planet” (or something).
Not really. Erlich and the Club of Rome have it wrong. A long time ago the Malthusians predicted that we would deplete our resources and civilization would collapse. Buckminster Fuller pointed out that it wasn’t going to happen. Every time we run out of a material we find a way to use something else. He also pointed out that we can build almost everything using less material.
Sustainable just means we can keep going. People like David Suzuki would have us believe that it has some mystical deeper meaning. They’re wrong.
Malthus was wrong because he didn’t account for the fact that the free market economy adapts to changing conditions. Suzuki is wrong because he doesn’t account for the fact that a command economy doesn’t adapt and eventually comes crashing down around its own ears.
commieBob April 21, 2017 at 3:47 am
Oh, and it will get better wait until Three D printers are common in the average house hold. Need a replacement widget? just program it and print. Want a custom door knocker – design it program it and print.
I will probably be investing in one for my boys to learn on in the near future.
michael
I fully agree with getting a 3d printer for the kids. Just banging out stuff that they download isn’t real educational. On the other hand, if you can get the kids using 3d modelling software, you’re giving them a real leg up.
Here’s a link to some free software. I haven’t used any of it so you’re on your own. Being free means you can try several programs. Have fun!
My favorite 3d printer fail was the guy who printed a new handle for his espresso pot. It melted immediately. 🙂 link Every affordable 3d printer I am aware of prints meltable plastic. The results aren’t very strong and they melt easily. On the other hand, for building and modifying kids toys, I think cheap 3d printers are awesome.
I’ve read of recent attempts to make 3d printers that can work with metal. All are still in the early laboratory stages.
It’s a ‘thing’ in the aircraft industry. 3d printed titanium parts are lighter, cheaper, and just as strong as conventionally machined parts. link
Patents are expiring and 3d printing is getting cheaper. It won’t be too long before 3d printers turn up in your local machine shop.
3-D printing glass objects
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-d-glass.html
A team of researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany has developed a way to 3-D print objects made of pure glass.
About 20 years ago I read about a device for 3D printing houses. It sprayed concrete to form the walls and was jacked up as the walls got taller.
“MarkW April 21, 2017 at 2:11 pm”
No, that was more a way of building tall regular structures like chimneys. Very efficient.
This is the difference between subtractive and additive synthesis, like sculpting vs casting.
Doing more with less is called efficiency, something every company that has ever existed strives for.
Those that don’t end up losing market share to those that do.
So, what this study is saying is: “If you are a business hiring manager, DON’T HIRE ANYONE WHO GRADUATES FROM LOYOLA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS!” I am glad they made resume screening just that much easier.
Plus many. From an MBA not from Loyola. There are exactly two good Bschools,in Chicago: Northwestern and Chicago. Used to hire from both. Never from Loyola.
Working my way up to the top in government and government-influenced businesses, I ran across a number of slick suck ups. Almost without fail, the posers had the latest management book of the month displayed prominently on their desks. All the buzz words!
Now, all the drones in government and other large bureaucracies have hopped on the climate change gravy train. That will change only when the government subsidies and mandates go away.
This brings back memories of my own education in a Jesuit school.
When discussing where the leaders of the US sent their sons, in the Kennedy era, they chose universities that were not Catholic.
It was not just the ‘Cathlophobia’ prejudice of the time, but the impression that the products of such universities were not fit to compete adequately in the modern, multicultural, world.
Hopefully that may change.
Not with Professor Landrum aboard.
Businesses that cannot make a profit are not sustainable. Governments that steal businesses’ profits kill businesses.
Ronald Reagan on a role of government:
If it moves, tax it. If it still moves, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
How many businesses has she run? My guess is zero. Next question, why would I want to take a course from someone with zero experience?
Suicide. (What other word for killing oneself, figuratively, in business, would one choose?)
I might also add, straight-line projections (extrapolations) into-the-future have ALWAYS worked so well too. Within out own LIFETIMES we have seen several radical changes that none except the sci-fi community foresaw or projected, like Dick Tracy’s 2-way wrist “TeeVee” …
Any business (such as Wal Mart) claiming to be implementing “green” or “sustainable” practices are merely greenwashing, and do it solely for the PR value.
“Climate change impacts every[thing]…. No business will be untouched.”
If by climate change you mean the ideology of climate change, you are right. They’ll be “touched” all right. The damage caused by the ideology of climate change will cost more and do more damage to nations than actual climate change.
I would expect any of her courses would have a section on how to approach and ask your parents to allow you to come back home and live in their basement.
I read where more Americans between 18 and 34 live with their parents than with a Spouse (see below), and I also read where 25 percent of these “children” who stay at home don’t work or study. I guess they just sponge. Maybe ole Trump will get some of these freeloaders a job soon. I imagine the parents would appreciate it.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/04/20/report-americans-18-34-live-parents-spouse/
Sustainability was a useful element in the design process until these clowns came along and messed it up. They have corrupted other concepts such as resilience. Anything termed “smart” isn’t.
I am a “GreenSmart” accredited designer but no longer rely on using the term. I can still practice “sustainability for the rest of us”, as long as I avoid saying that is what I am doing.
I’d suggest that the current higher education system in the USA will face a big problem with sustainability. The system keeps getting more expensive and appears to be producing a lower quality product.
Speaking of which, I just came across the statistic that shows how low Vermont’s funding effort is a percent of a student’s public education bill. It’s less than 14 percent. That explains the Bernie and Hillary tactic of promising free college tuition. They want to throw it on the national debt pile where no one looks and absolve states of any funding responsibility–like Vermont.
Only profit-making businesses are sustainable! If it loses money consistently, the business will eventually go bankrupt and cease to exist. Lose money, lose jobs. Make profit, gain jobs. It’s not rocket science.
Let’s see what the business school Dean has to say about it and the institutional development officer.
There’s nothing objectionable about this at all. Loyola is a private university that gets to choose its own teaching methodology and curriculum. After a few years of their graduates failing to compete with thiose of other schools, the market will deselect them as viable candidates. People will stop attending the (expensive) school. Problem solved.
…and donations will go down because the alums will not have the wealth to spread.
I don’t know if anyone is objecting per se.
Ridiculing on the other hand …
….The only thing liberal socialists are good at is spending “Other Peoples Money” !!
They are also pretty good at trying to run other people’s lives.
OT. There is a new research claiming that the 100 Ky Milankovic cycles didn’t start about 800 Ky ago but were present during the previous 6 My, however, the mystery remains since eccentricity is the weakest cycle.
Interesting article. Glad to see there are some scientists who are still doing real science.
Was disappointed to see the obligatory mention of global warming though.
Reading the summary of their work, for the life of me I couldn’t find any mention of CO2 in their research nor findings. CO2 impacting the future Northern Hemisphere just pops up whole cloth.
First they cleaned up the water…..then they cleaned up the air
….then realized the real money was in cleaning up the thermometers
…the war and tax on sugar sweet drinks, boko haram and upside down So American countries, hiring illegal refugees.etc……had nothing to do with it
So the “coffee study” predicts warmer temperatures AND drying in Latin America where a particular variety of coffee been is grown (arabica).
First of all, warmer temperatures are going to create a MORE humid atmosphere, not dryer. How do these “scientists” think atmospheric moisture comes from – cold continental deserts, or warm oceanic waters? Duhhhh!
Second of all, the climate is changing all the time anyway. If whatever changes that are in store for us result in negative impacts on some plant species, overall the effects will be positive with greater CO2 concentrations (i.e., “plant food”). If our horticulturists detect a particular negative impact on a particular cash crop, then markets will devote research funds and efforts to develop new strains of old species that are more tolerant of whatever change occurs (less moisture, or more … higher temps, or lower temps … more of this bug, or less of that bug … etc. etc. etc.).
That’s exactly how mankind evolved technologically over the last 10 thousand years since we moved from hunting gathering by wanderers to agricultural based societies with permanent infrastructure. We evolved and adapted and commanded our world, at least, to some degree if not totally so.
“Author: Nancy E. Landrum, Professor of Sustainable Business Management,”
Now if nobody would study ‘Sustainable Business Management’ than the professor job would become unsustainable isn’t it?
chiefio just had a post about ‘unlimiting’ growth here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/unlimiting-growth/
‘Sustainable Business Management’ is a euphemism for socialist control of the economic sector.
Academia is a hotbed for this sort of nonsense. The UN, EU and U.S. Democratic Party have also been seduced by progressive/collectivist propaganda.
Much better that business students, and all students for that matter, should learn some statistics and research methodology so that are not easily bullshitted by studies and research poorly designed and executed with propaganda as their main objective.
Well stated, I firmly believe in teaching and understanding the fundamental tool that allow one to evaluate claims and perform useful product.
Businesses that don’t focus on profits, don’t remain in business very long.
Yes Yes – less focus on legal compliance… What a joke. Obviously this person has never worked in a company of any size.