Lessons from a decade of teaching sustainability at b-school

The opinions expressed here by Trellis expert contributors are their own, not those of Trellis.​

Ten years ago, I joined NYU Stern to set up the Center for Sustainable Business, which aims to help current and future business leaders embed sustainability into corporate strategy to drive better financial and societal performance. In that decade, over 300 students have graduated with our specialization in Sustainable Business and more than 1,500 students have taken our hallmark Sustainability for Competitive Advantage course. We’ve published more than 30 in-depth reports on the business case for sustainability and engaged with dozens of leading companies on monetizing their sustainability strategies. 

And, like with many jobs, my teaching role has been a joy and a travail. The joy comes from helping students find a path to a business career tackling the environmental and social challenges that will plague their generation, as well as meeting alumni who have sustainability careers and come back to Stern to mentor and support students.  

The travail? Stern students who don’t take sustainability courses (the majority) because of the persistent perception that it‘s “soft.” The misconception remains that it’s not core to business or to their careers. That mentality needs to change and it will require all of us — teachers, hiring managers and business leaders — to shift the narrative. 

5 impactful lessons

As I wrap up my time at Stern, here are the most impactful lessons I’ve learned: 

• Students tend to start with a limited understanding of what sustainable business is and how it manifests across industries and functions. They may be personally concerned about climate change or human rights issues in supply chains, but have no language or understanding of the significant role sustainability plays in business operations and financial performance. This is true for many of my executive students as well. When I have my class interview family members and friends, respondents also have a very narrow understanding about what constitutes sustainable business, thinking in a very limited fashion about, say, recycling.
• Students, including executives, have very little exposure to the role sustainability plays in innovation, operational efficiency, employee retention and risk reduction. Core classes in operations, brand management, accounting, finance and strategy generally don’t incorporate sustainability themes or linkages, which siloes sustainability in a way that’s counterproductive to effective management. I remember one student who came to my class in her senior year and said that she wished she’d taken the course earlier because until she took it, she hadn’t been able to see a way to align her personal goals and values with her studies and career goals.
• Students tend to be skeptical of business’ claims of sustainability. These are students who’ve seen many business scandals and are subject to marketing messages 24/7. They are clear-eyed about the lack of authenticity — in other words the gap between what companies do and what they say. The lack of trust creates challenges for engaging students in sustainability themselves, even though they’d like to find a way to do good while doing well at a company that has sustainability values. That skepticism, however, encourages students to learn more about “real” sustainability and how they can bring that to their future employers.
• Students have an “aha” moment when they realize there are various career pathways in sustainability — many of which don’t have sustainability in the title. They learn that sustainability execution often lies with supply chain managers, procurement officers, operations leaders or controllers. Broadening the scope helps make the journey appear more attainable and inclusive. One former student, for example, started an online sustainable products platform in India. Another found his way into sustainable agriculture consulting after an experiential learning project he worked on at Stern with an Indonesian palm oil company. Another student works on electric vehicles at Con-Edison and one former student pivoted from traditional finance into impact investing.
• Sustainability, at its core, is about change management and transformation. One can understand the fundamentals of corporate sustainability, but actually executing against them is difficult and a skill in itself. Thus, students need to learn how to be intrapreneurs and adept at change management — critical skills that will stand them in good stead beyond sustainability, given these volatile times. They also need to learn more than the theory by hearing from sustainability practitioners how they’re managing the challenge in practice. One of my students went to work for a private equity firm, where she promptly brought us in to train her colleagues in sustainability-linked value creation, to help them make the leap she had made in class.

The big takeaway

I think the biggest change we need is to shift the narrative of sustainability. Schools aren’t teaching sustainability as part of good management, nor are sustainability leaders talking about it as part of effective change management strategy in the business, policy or consumer arenas.

As a consequence, people of all ages don’t understand that sustainability is fundamental to good management and performance. That social and environmental factors can be financially material to their corporate future. That every procurement manager today must understand and manage the ESG risks and opportunities in their supply chain. That no company buying electricity can avoid growing costs and volatility of energy availability and pricing. That no consumer-facing company can ignore the growing demand for sustainable, healthy products. That business and societal transformation isn’t impossible and, in fact, is already happening. That driving corporate and investment sustainability at the speed and scale we need in this time of backlash requires the discipline of focusing on the business case for sustainability investments. And that while investing in sustainability is the ethical thing to do, it’s incumbent upon us to also demonstrate through research, practice and education that it’s the financially smart thing to do. 

I’m excited for CSB’s next 10 years. Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics had an outsized influence on business school education over the past few decades through a maniacal focus on shareholder primacy and short-termism.  I like to think that NYU Stern and CSB will have a similar (although less maniacal) impact over the next few decades on facilitating the transition to capitalism that creates value for all stakeholders and protects our planet.