Taking care of (sustainability in) business

Twenty-nine per #162; 56 per #162; 94 per cent. Percentages like this would be an interesting spread on a student’s transcript but what they say about an entire faculty is, perhaps, even more intriguing. They represent the inclusion of sustainability and social responsibility (S/SR) within core courses at the Gustavson School of Business, and—by the end of this school year—these stats will be 100 per cent across the board.

Just over a year ago, the business faculty unanimously agreed to include some element of sustainability or social responsibility in every core course in the Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Business Administration programs, and in every Victoria course in the Master of Global Business program.

To get a handle on how far they had to go and which courses needed adjusting, the Centre for Social and Sustainable Innovation (CSSI) surveyed the professors and sessional instructors.

When the baseline was complete, you could hear the jaws drop.

The BCom program, which teaches 240 bright young minds every year, includes 16 core courses, and 15 of them already include some sustainability or social responsibility content. Ten of the 18 core MBA courses and four of 14 MGB courses also integrate information in the form of case studies, readings, assignments, lectures, industry guest speakers and videos. Even 71 per cent of the PhD seminars have S/SR content.
Gustavson aims to be Canada’s first integrated sustainable and carbon-neutral business school, so the CSSI’s exciting task is to find and share more best practices and leading research so Gustavson can keep inspiring the world’s next business leaders–our students.