Biz, Biz, Oh What a Relief It Is 1

M.B.A. students increasingly required to take courses in sustainability

We can't say finance, accounting, and marketing get our rocks off, but we're jazzed about a growing trend: 54 percent of U.S. business schools require students to take a class in sustainability or corporate social responsibility, a jump of 20 percent since 2001. At MIT's Sloan School of Management, one popular course examines how the positives of free-market capitalism might be integrated with more sustainable corporate practices. "We thought it would be popular among a niche of do-gooders, but even the investment banker types are interested," says class co-designer Richard Locke. The trend isn't specific to the U.S., either -- the Indian Institute of Management in Lucknow offers a course that educates students on the ins and outs of carbon markets. Global warming is "in the forefront of [M.B.A. students'] minds," says Mark Zupan, business school dean at the University of Rochester. This is totally going to ruin environmentalists' grand scheme to wreck the economy and pour patchouli on the ashes.

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