According to HSBC's recent "A Climate for Recovery" report, 15 per cent of all the trillions of dollars pumped into bailing out the world's economies since last year's crash has been allocated to climate change-related investments.
For Asia, and therefore for Asian MBA students looking to optimise their future career prospects, this is of growing importance. The mainland has now overtaken the United States in "green-collar" job creation and is committed to constructing more wind turbines than the rest of the world combined, at a value of some
4 billion yuan (HK$4.53 billion). Sustainability, the science of exploiting the present without compromising the future, is now big business.
Green MBAs have enjoyed a special place for some time. The trend, however, is for all self-respecting MBA and EMBA syllabuses to integrate into the curriculum a strong element of environmental and ecological concern. Tomorrow's managers will still have to make their numbers, but they will have to do so in the context of the impact of their activities on factors that were previously considered outside their sphere of responsibility. So should the MBA now be classified under social sciences?
Maurice Tse is an associate dean at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Last year, HKU joined forces with New York's Columbia Business School and the London Business School to add an Asian dimension to an EMBA programme that was already rated No1 worldwide on the Financial Times rankings list. For Dr Tse, sustainability is not a standalone issue, but one that should develop from a holistic approach to business.
"Core business decisions are made based with respect to three focuses: ethics, economics and law," he said. "All decisions must come from those considerations. We consider sustainability to be part of that decision-making process, so of course sustainability and green management will be contributing factors to any long-term decision taken for your business. Green and sustainability are not just individual topics to be taken into consideration, but also inform all elements of business: marketing, management, strategy and commerce."
At Baptist University, the MBA programme is run in conjunction with Scotland's Strathclyde Business School and follows the globally successful Strathclyde model. Donald Chan, associate head of business and information technology studies, emphasised that managing towards sustainability in any business required a solid ethical code.
"It used to be that strategy was just about making money. Now you have to add environmental concern to the mix. Managers are required to take external factors, not just their own operation, into account," he said
"We aim to make sure that our students are aware of all important external factors, which include sustainability, social responsibility and care for the environment. The most critical element, however, is values: social and moral values."
Social and moral values are all well and good, and there is no shortage of green advocates armed with terabytes of statistics to prove that sustainability makes financial sense, but for most business managers the only guaranteed outcome of sustainability policies is short-term cost and dissipation of valuable resources. The pressure to put climate change on the back burner can be intense.
Dr Tse acknowledged the dilemma for managers but countered that business strategy on sustainability was influenced primarily by one driver with which not even the most profit-hungry shareholder would take issue: government regulation.
"Economies are heavily influenced by the regulatory side. There is a growing focus on the environment and the potential cost impact can have a huge impact on the long-term health and competitiveness of the company. If they want to survive and come out ahead, they have to get that right. If they do, they can both prolong vital resources and cut operating costs," he said.
Dr Chan agreed. "It's government policy that is forcing business to adapt to a more sustainable world. What we are trying to instil in today's MBA students is that the higher they climb up the career ladder, the more their decisions will influence others' careers and lives, too. It is a methodology for how to apply the knowledge they learn in a moral sense, with awareness of the values underlying the course. Students' approaches to these issues are now longer-term."
As with all contemporary MBAs, both HKU's EMBA and Baptist University's MBA base much of their coursework around case studies. These, too, now increasingly integrate the sustainability dimension in order to challenge the student's ability to navigate the often turbulent waters between profitable growth on one side and duty to society on the other.
Dr Chan added: "This is not just about principles but about real-world cases. We need to make sure our students are fully aware of critical factors such as these so that they can lead their companies in the right direction. And ... we want them to keep developing as managers and as human beings after they leave the course."
