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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
In the upside-down world of Greenies, “Sustainability”, just like “climate change” mean whatever they choose it to mean, neither more, nor less.
Businesses that focus on sustainability and ignore profit, are generally unable to sustain themselves.
I predict that the prediction of shortages of coffee and cocoa will be as
accurate as the predictions of drops in cereal grain production.
Actual “long run” shortages of coffee and cocoa are likely be due to
greatly increased demand.
There is only one reason for business and that is to make money. A business school that does not focus primarily on profit is not a business school.
I’ve lost track of the number of liberals and populists (not that there is much difference) who have proclaimed that the only reason for companies to exist is to create jobs.
They’ll whine about automation because it eliminates jobs and they’ll scream that government needs to pass laws to keep companies from shipping “our jobs” overseas.
Business schools should focus on sustainable profit. THERE, I fixed it.
The sustainability objective, thus, is built into the profit objective. … Win/win.
“This study focused on reading lists of introductory courses in the USA; cases, videos and supplemental materials were excluded”
Apart from the question of who in his right mind takes any notice of course reading lists, this is the most egregious cherry-picking, totally ignoring actual course content.
I missed that. All the learning in our MBA program happens in the case studies, business background research projects, and business model role playing. The reading is just for background theory, all the real learning happens when we show them how it is applied to real-world situations. (the marketing program does show how to lie to customers without actually saying anything untrue though! you say the right meaningless words to give the customer the impression that the company cares about whatever they care about without committing the company to anything but words.)
” Sustainability” is a word that sounds all warm and fuzzy but has no real meaning. Sustainability itself is impossible because it is a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The universe tends towards disorder and entropy is always increasing. In a business sense, no company wants to be sustainable in the way that the greens want. As Schumpeter said, business is a process of creative destruction. Pepsi was not sustainable only selling soft drinks, Apple was not sustainable only selling computers, and Amazon was not sustainable only selling books.
Every successful business is searching every day to make its products or services better, faster, cheaper. There is no such thing in the business world (or any place in the universe) that is “sustainable”
Absolutely right! This whole notion of sustainability is derived from the ‘Eden Myth’ embraced by modern environmentalism. This is the assumption that the planet’s biosphere was all stability and harmony until the disease of humanity ruined everything beautiful. The whole paradigm is built on this anti-science/anti-reality assumption. Anytime policy is built on false assumptions, that policy will do a lot more harm than good!
The only constant on this Earth is change. Therefore, the key ingredient to thriving is adaptability. Attempts at sustainability will always lead to disaster! It is profoundly telling that CAGW crowd rarely even mentions adaptability, our greatest human asset, when pontificating on what we should do about potential climate change. Instead, they want to try and recreate a Garden of Eden that only existed in metaphor, and completely devoid of scientific understanding.
If you don’t like “sustainable”, then let’s find another word that encompasses conscientious use of resources with a definition of “value” that transcends mere monetary value.
“Sustainability” does not have to be an evil or unrealistic word. It only becomes so, when you force it to become so.
… just like I don’t think the word, “bias”, is a bad word. Without bias, there would be no defining categories, and the world would be even more of a fluid chaos than it is. If nothing were sustainable for any length of time, then there would be no defining, categorical boundaries, and the world, again, would be more fluid dynamic chaos than it is.
I, therefore, do not object to the word, “sustainability”, but rather, I object to the misapplication and absurd twisting of that word into a meaning that is unsustainable.
Robert, real people pay real money for “value” that transcends mere monetary value. To the extent they do so voluntarily, it reflects the aggregate value of things that transcend mere monetary value to any particular society.
To the extent real people are forced to egregiously pay for others’ notions of “value,” we have unbridled totalitarianism.
DF,
But money was devised as an easy way to assign value to goods and even vague concepts. It seldon hurts do look at a benefit:cost calculation in $$ terms when one is evaluating. It is often the easiest and most precise way.
I agree with RK. “Sustainable” and “sustainability” are easy words that have been hijacked by some intent on ways to signal their impressions of virtue. Leave the poor word alone, to lapse back into its general use.
Geoff.
Madam, Have you ever had a real job? Have you ever had any responsibility to any company’s bottom line (if you even know what that means)? Have you ever had the responsibility to any employees well being (insuring their jobs were secure)? Have you ever signed anyone’s paycheck? Have you ever had the courage to step away from the safety of your gilded tower and into the real world? The answer to these and other questions is more than likely a resounding NO. As demonstrated time and again your masquerade of communist/socialist ideology (anything green or sustainable or having anything to do with CAGW) always fails. I suggest you take a freshman high school course in biology to learn the reality that this world of does not exist without CO2, if in fact that is still being taught as you seem to be a product of our deficient education system. I find it difficult to believe that you are teaching at a business school.
From the article: “Future business leaders must be equipped with the scientific understanding of how climate change is currently impacting business,”
I would like to know that myself.
As far as I know, human-caused climate change is not a factor impacting business because there is no evidence that the climate is being modified in any way by humans, and no natural events such as droughts or floods, etc., can be tied to human activity. Even the UN IPCC says so.
Professor Landrum is assuming facts which are not in evidence. There is no evidence that humans are causing the climate to change. One shouldn’t base their business model on pure speculation, which is what CAGW is.
Professor Landrum is a True Believer promoting the CAGW gospel.
If global warming was going to impact any industry, it would be the insurance industry.
Warren Buffet recently put out a statement saying that to date there has been no such impact and he’s a pretty strong warmist.
All lefty needs to do is show us a business that emits nothing, uses nothing, a place where the janitor and the C.E.O. have income equality, and doesn’t try to “make a profit” and oh yeah actually exists. Maybe the manufacturer of unicorn rainbows.
Has not Professor Landrum already witnessed a country without fossil fuel use? They’re poor and needy. These poor and needy want to be taught how to use fossil fuels so that they can leave poor and needy behind.
What, pray tell, is the business model, for a country, without fossil fuels? The moon?
If sustainability is mandatory for business schools, should free market studies be mandatory for environmental studies?
+ many
See this for what it is: Another ‘cat’s paw’, exhorting the socialist screed.
Jbird (above, April 21, 2017 at 7:28 am) accurately refutes her false economics:
“Without profit, a business is unsustainable.”
Similarly, her false assertions that ‘carbon’ must be constrained is refuted:
“Without abundant carbon, Life on Earth itself is unsustainable.”
When the planetary ‘carbon budget’ approached 150ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, all plant and animal life struggled for survival. When atmospheric CO2 exceeded 2000ppm, plant and animal life flourished in abundance. Life demands and depends on abundant ‘carbon’, in the form of atmospheric CO2. The ‘sustainability’ of Life is entirely dependent on abundant atmospheric CO2! At a modest 400ppm, both paleontology and modern plant growth studies affirm that ‘carbon’ does not need to be constrained or in any way limited.
First, sustainable is not a definable term, so teaching it is impossible. I also assume slavery will be reinstituted since not making money means people have to work for free and they generally do not do that without being forced to do so.
Loyola doesn’t sound like much of a place for learning, either practical things or theoretical. In the long no process is sustainable. This is so obvious that I am wondering about the validity of IQ tests that these so-called top level schools employ as faculty, or recruit as students.
No matter what the process, it takes work (foot-pounds, energy, money) for the process to yield desirable results. At some point it becomes undesirable to spend additional resources on a business of process because it is no longer profitable. All processes adherer to this simple truth. Nothing is absolutely sustainable.
Think of the schools that are graduating business majors that concentrate on management and making a profit. It may be that the gene pool among some business schools has run its course, and it’s time to hire the most excellent state university graduates.
Loyola is definitely a place of learning.
It is very high up on Business Studies in the USA.
Things must have changed since the Kennedy era.
https://www.forbes.com/colleges/university-of-notre-dame/
Who knows what sustainability means in the US context.
Perhaps it means reliable cheap gas powered despatchable electricity, recycling programs and work for the people rather than exporting labour intensive industry to somewhere else.
A business exists to create income/wealth for its owner. As long as my business generates a profit, I’ll keep it running. That’s sustainability. When the business can’t carry (“sustain”) itself, eventually it folds.
Ideally business is about maximizing profit while providing goods and services to people in a competitive market where others are doing the same.
They do this while keeping within the rules established by the government (i.e. collusion on pricing, selling dangerous materials, poisoning foods, etc).
The problem today is mostly that businesses want the government to legislate them a monopoly (barrier to entry too high for small companies) and the revolving door between large corporations and government departments (congress, FDA, USDA, EPA) smacks of outright bribery and payoffs.
If they think that climate change is the problem well there is no hope for them. Wait until the next little ice age hits (heaven help us all if our interglacial ends) then you will see the real impact of negative climate change as the growing season shrinks and the northern hemisphere produces less and less.
Just another free loader jumping on the Climate Change/sustainability bandwagon to get some attention. And see….. they did! MSM is happy to report about them, they’re happy with the attention, and I’m sure it gives them a warm fuzzy that they’re doing something to save the world.
Coca-Cola shut down production facilities in Venezuela. It was obviously a climate change caused sustainability issue. /sarc
It’s right there in her title: “Professor of Sustainable Business.” When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
By definition, they are not teaching business. You could probably make a fraud case against them.
Is World Peace the prerequisite?
What about whirled peas?
…and underwater basket weaving which was a course taught in the 70s
Professor Landrum of Chicago’s Loyola University has a point, but is on the wrong track.
ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS should be required to take a sustainability course:
“Sustainability (or lack thereof) as it relates to government and education systems & programs”
They must learn how to sustain their business before anything else.
Obama told business owners “You didn’t build that. Someone else made that happen.” So what sustainability are business owners to be responsible for?