2024's Top 40 Sustainable MBAs: Leading the Green Business Revolution
In 2016, finding an MBA program prioritising sustainability felt like searching for a needle in a haystack. Today, however, according to Tim Stonemeijer, a British entrepreneur and circular economy advocate, the landscape has transformed into a veritable "candy shop" of business schools championing sustainable practices. This surge in sustainability-focused MBAs presents a crucial question: how can we accurately measure their commitment and broader impact on the business world?
Corporate Knights' 2024 Better World MBA ranking tackles this challenge by focusing on two key metrics: curriculum content and graduate career paths. "Courses are the main input for an MBA program, and the impact that graduates have in the world is their main output," explains Corporate Knights CEO Toby Heaps. "Excellence in both these areas strongly indicates a school's leadership in fostering holistic, future-oriented business leaders."
Stonemeijer, a 2018 graduate of the University of Exeter Business School (ranked 10th overall and within the top five for graduate impact), exemplifies this shift. His five years in the fast fashion industry fuelled a growing discontent with its unsustainable practices. His entrepreneurial spirit, evident in an earlier venture crafting wooden accessories from reclaimed wood, had always driven him to minimise waste. He found the Exeter program perfectly aligned with his values, with all courses framed around making business "not just less bad, but more good."
His post-MBA career trajectory underscores this impact. After consulting on sustainable strategies, he joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity dedicated to promoting the circular economy. He credits his MBA with broadening his perspective, shifting his focus from a single industry to innovation in general, and even facilitating his connection to the Foundation through the university's network.
Similarly, Alyssa Stankiewicz's MBA journey at the University of Vermont's Grossman School of Business led to an unexpected but fulfilling career path. With a background in linguistics and a decade in the organic food industry, she entered the program with entrepreneurial aspirations. Unexpectedly, the program's finance professors recognised her analytical skills, encouraging her to participate in a Wharton School competition focused on sustainable investment portfolios. Their group won, and her subsequent practicum at Morningstar, a financial services company, solidified her career in sustainable finance, perfectly aligning with her personal values. The Grossman School, alongside Bard College, leads Corporate Knights' ranking for alumni impact, reflecting its commitment to influencing both graduates and their future employers.
Dean Sanjay Sharma of the Grossman School illustrates this influence with an anecdote about a 2020 phone call from Steve Phelps, then CEO of NASCAR (and a Grossman alumnus), seeking guidance on addressing a racial incident. Phelps' subsequent decision to ban the Confederate flag and promote diversity significantly impacted the organisation, highlighting the far-reaching implications of a sustainability-focused education, even within seemingly incongruous sectors.
The value of peer networks within these programs is also frequently cited. Jonaki Majumdar, a graduate of Maastricht University School of Business and Economics (the top European program in the ranking), describes her cohort as possessing a shared "altruistic" outlook. Her transition from a high-powered finance career to a sustainability management role at a global ink and packaging firm illustrates the transformative potential of these programs. She views her Maastricht MBA as the best decision of her life, lamenting only that she didn't pursue it earlier.
The 2024 Corporate Knights ranking, encompassing 174 business schools, utilises publicly available data on curriculum sustainability and graduate employment with impact organisations. Schools could also voluntarily provide graduate numbers working for organisations that actively promote social and environmental progress for a bonus to their overall score. The data underscores a clear trend: MBAs lacking a sustainability lens may soon be the exception, rather than the rule. The full ranking, including detailed methodology, is available [link to Corporate Knights report].
