可持續發展可能教很難應用

此文很膚淺. 正如多數的MBA的 可持續發展課程.
說說而已

How Green Is Your School?

By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE April 17, 2013

 

THE HAGUE — One of the reasons that Layla El Zein, a successful telecommunications engineer in Lebanon, decided to go to business school was that she was interested in turning her charity work into a full-time job.
“I felt that I had much more to give than volunteering,” she said. She chose the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University partly because of its M.B.A. program’s focus on sustainability. “Their sustainability initiatives are really clear and tough, and they prioritize it,” she said.

 

As a student in the program, she was able to secure an internship with Oxfam in the Netherlands, where she is working to test the feasibility of impact investment.
Whether because of increased student demand or new hiring strategies among employers, business schools are paying greater attention to environmental issues. And while they are integrating sustainability into their curriculums, experts debate how these topics should be best taught, both inside and outside the classroom.
“There are a growing number of programs that say that they train students in sustainability,” said Nancy McGaw, deputy director of the Business and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, which until recently published a comprehensive MBA ranking focused on social and environmental impact
The ranking, which Aspen stopped compiling in March, listed the top five as Stanford; York University, in Toronto; IE University, in Madrid; Notre Dame, in Indiana; and Yale. Rotterdam was No.19.
The China Europe International Business School, also known as Ceibs, has been formally integrating sustainability into its curriculum since 2009. Before that, the subject played a part in student extracurriculars, said Lydia Price, a professor of marketing at the school. The curriculum is designed to educate students on the problems faced by business and society.
“We introduce them to some of the problems China has with water and air,” Dr. Price said by telephone. “The first goal is to raise awareness.”
Teaching practical skills is just as important as awareness, she said, adding that “even if they are aware and well-intentioned, they can end up making decisions that end up hurting the environment.”
Ms. El Zein, the Rotterdam student, worries that while sustainability is taught in the classroom, it is not taken as seriously in the real workplace. “Not enough is being done about it after business school,” she said.
An awareness of sustainability issues is important for all businesses students, regardless of their field, said Maryke Luijendijk-Steenkamp, M.B.A. marketing and admissions director for the Rotterdam School of Management.
“Even students who are looking at hard-core finance, increasingly they need a business degree that is reflective of the global business landscape,” she said.
As part of an optional course, the school takes students to the Bergplaas farm in South Africa, where they spend a week learning about sustainable business.
A problem in teaching sustainability is defining the subject, said Ms. McGaw, whose work at the Aspen Institute includes questions of social, ethical and environmental sustainability.
“How do you figure out where to make decisions that will contribute to the long-term value for all stakeholders?” she said, emphasizing that the stakeholders affected by companies’ actions are not only the stockholders.
Although the Aspen Institute has suspended the Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking, it is maintaining the database of sustainable-business schools.
Ms. McGaw worries about keeping the same level of standards across programs. “How can we be sure that students are getting consistency across their curriculum?” she asked.
Mike Peirce, deputy director at the University of Cambridge Program for Sustainable Leadership, says that despite recent progress, much needs to be done.
“There is quite a long way to go for business schools in general to think about how to integrate in sustainability in M.B.A.’s,” Mr. Peirce said.
Mr. Peirce — whose Cambridge program offers several short-term sustainability leadership courses and a two-year part-time Master of Studies in Sustainable Leadership for senior executives — said much of the new thinking was aided by the networks formed when businesspeople were given the space to connect in unconventional ways.
“There are still limits in any educational model,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t take something away from them.”
Business schools can show their dedication to the subject by signing the Principles for Responsible Management Education, a U.N.-backed initiative that promotes corporate responsibility and sustainable-business education.
Various rankings, classifications and databases measure how much sustainability education business schools offer, both inside and outside of class.
Student applicants are also a driving force behind the change.
Net Impact is a sustainable-business networking group that was founded 20 years ago by business school students. In the past five years, the program has increased its student chapters by 70 percent. The group, which grades business schools on their sustainability performance, is now a presence on more than 250 campuses worldwide.
According to a study carried out by Net Impact last year, 65 percent of students hope to make a social or environmental impact through their job.
There are other rewards for students with sound sustainability credentials on their records. At the Shanghai business school, for example, one group of students decided to make their campus carbon-neutral as part of a course project.
They commissioned pilot studies to assess the campus’s carbon footprint. Plans to replace inefficient air conditioners and retrofit windows to deflect sunlight were put into action. Money was also raised to plant seedlings in Mongolia to offset the carbon pollution that could not be eliminated.
For this project, the students received a prize in 2011 from the Graduate Business Forum, a global network of current and former student leaders from the world’s top graduate business programs.

商學院

一流商學院開設可持續發展培訓課

CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE 報道 2013年04月17日

海牙——萊拉·厄爾·蔡恩(Layla El Zein)是個事業有成的電信工程師，在黎巴嫩工作，她決定去讀商學院，原因之一就是想把自己的慈善事業轉變成全職工作。
“我覺得我所能提供的遠不止志願服務，”她說。她選擇的是伊拉斯謨大學(Erasmus University)的鹿特丹管理學院(Rotterdam School of Management)，這在一定程度上是因為它的工商管理碩士(MBA)課程關注可持續發展。“它的可持續發展計劃非常明確，也很嚴格，而且他們把它放到了優先級去考慮，”她說。

按圖放大

Michel de Groot for the International Herald Tribune

萊拉·厄爾·蔡恩（面向攝影機者）在鹿特丹管理學院的畢業典禮上。

作為該項目的一名學生，她會得到荷蘭樂施會(Oxfam)的一個實習崗位，工作內容是對影響力投資的可行性進行測試。
不管是因為增長的學生需求還是僱主新的招聘策略，總之商學院是越來越重視環境問題了。而在將可持續發展納入課程設置的同時，對於如何才能取得最佳教學效果——包括課內教育和課外教育，專家仍有不同意見。
“越來越多的項目聲稱它們可以為學生提供可持續發展培訓，”阿斯彭研究所(Aspen Institute)商業與社會項目副主任南希·麥高(Nancy McGaw)說。最近，阿斯彭研究所發佈了一份詳細的MBA排名，其所依據的標準就是它們對社會和環境影響的關注程度。
在這份截至3月份的排名中，前五位分別是斯坦福大學(Stanford University)、加拿大多倫多的約克大學(York University)、西班牙馬德里的IE大學(IE University)、印第安納州的聖母大學(University of Notre Dame)和耶魯大學(Yale University)。鹿特丹管理學院排第19位。
中歐國際工商學院(Ceibs, China Europe International Business School)自2009年起就已經將可持續發展正式納入它的課程設置。該校市場營銷學教授白詩莉(Lydia Price)表示，此前該科目只是學生課外課程的一部分。這個課程旨在培養學生應對商業和社會所面臨的問題。
“我們向學生們介紹了中國在水和空氣方面所面臨的一些問題，”白詩莉博士在電話中說，“首要目標是要提高認識。”
她表示，傳授實用技能與提高認識同等重要。“即便他們有這種認識，而且本意良好，他們最終所做出的決策也可能會危害環境。”她補充說。
鹿特丹管理學院的學生蔡恩女士擔心，雖然課堂上已經在講授可持續發展，但在實際工作場所，人們並沒對它動真格的。“離開商學院後，人們在這方面所做的努力還不夠，”她說。
鹿特丹管理學院負責MBA推廣和招生的主管馬利克·魯基恩迪克-斯蒂恩坎普(Maryke Luijendijk-Steenkamp)表示，對所有的商學院學生來說，不管他們以後進入什麼領域，可持續發展的意識都很重要。
“即便是那些想進入中堅金融領域的學生，他們也越來越需要一個反映全球商業藍圖的商學院學位，”她說。
作為選修課的一部分，該學院會帶學生前往南非的伯格普拉斯農場(Bergplaas)，並在那裡進行為期一周的可持續商業學習。
阿斯彭研究所的麥高女士表示，可持續發展課程教學中遇到的問題之一就是該科目的定義，這包含諸多問題，比如社會、倫理和環境的可持續發展等。
“你如何確定你所做的決策會有助於提升所有利益相關方的長期價值？”她追問道，並強調說受公司行動影響的利益相關方並不僅僅是股東。
雖然阿斯彭研究所暫停了“超越灰色地帶”（Beyond Grey Pinstripes，是針對商學院教學中有關社會、環境和道德問題而進行的評估——譯註）的排名，但它仍在維護開設可持續商業課程的學院的數據庫。
麥高女士擔心的是，這些項目能否保持同等水平的標準。“我們怎麼樣才能確保學生課程的一致性？”她問道。
劍橋大學可持續領導力項目(University of Cambridge Program for Sustainable Leadership)的副主任邁克·皮爾斯(Mike Peirce)說，儘管近期取得了進展，但還有大量工作需要做。
“整體而言，在思考如何將可持續發展納入到MBA課程這一問題上，商學院還有很長的路要走。”皮爾斯先生說。
皮爾斯先生負責的劍橋項目包括多個短期的可持續領導力課程項目，以及一個為期兩年的在職可持續領導力碩士項目，所針對的是高級管理人員。他說，很多新想法都得益於商界人士以非傳統方式形成的網絡。
“任何教育模式都有其局限性，”他說，“但這並不意味着它們就沒有可取之處。”
商學院可以簽署《負責任教育管理原則》(Principles for Responsible Management Education)，以此來展示它們在這一學科上的決心。該原則是聯合國(UN)支持的一項動議，旨在推進企業責任和可持續商業教育。
現在可以用不同的排名、分類和數據庫來評估商學院所提供的可持續發展教育——包括課內教育和課外教育。
學生申請者也是這種變化背後的一個驅動力。
Net Impact是由商學院學生在20年前創建的一個可持續商業網絡團體。在過去的五年里，該項目的校園分會數量增加了70%。目前，它在全球校園的分支已經超過250個，並會依據可持續發展表現對商學院進行分級。
據Net Impact去年開展的一項研究表明，65%的學生希望能通過他們的工作來影響社會或環境。
良好的可持續發展能力也會讓學生得到其他獎勵。比如說，在上海的中歐國際工商學院，一組學生就決定將校園的碳中和(carbon-neutral)作為課程項目的一部分。
他們通過試點研究評估校園的碳足跡。他們提出了一系列方案，包括換掉低效空調、改裝窗戶以避免陽光直射，這些也都得以付諸實施。此外，他們還籌集到了在內蒙古植樹的資金，以抵消無法消除的碳污染。
基於這個項目，這些學生贏得了2011年全球商學院論壇(Graduate Business Forum)的大獎。該論壇是一個由世界一流商學研究生項目的現任或前任學生領導者組成的全球網絡。

本文最初發表於2013年3月27日。
翻譯：陳召強