Two Yale graduate schools collaborated on a report about business students’ perspectives on the environment.
Hamera Shabbir
Staff Reporter
Yale Daily News
Researchers from the Yale School of the Environment and the Yale School of Management have found that more than half of business students worldwide are concerned about global warming’s impacts.
The second Rising Leaders on Social and Environmental Sustainability report, which was first published in 2015, analyzes survey responses from 2,035 students from around the globe. The Yale Center for Business and the Environment, CBEY, Global Network for Advanced Management or GNAM, and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication or YPCCC collaborated on the report. Ingrid C. Burke (Dean of the School of the Environment) and Kerwin K. Charle (Dean of the School of Management) wrote the foreword.
It’s really remarkable to see the School of Management and the School of the Environment where both deans come together to write the foreword, study author Stuart DeCew said. The programs, centers, faculty, staff, as well as research scientists from both schools can kind of connect and do this for a longer period of time. This just shows Yale’s ability to work together and use the diverse expertise and networks on campus.
DeCew who serves as CBEY executive director co-authored the report along with CBEY Faculty Co-Director Todd Cort, freelance writer Katie Gilbert, Associate Director for Global Initiatives at Yale School of Management Elizabeth Wilkinson, YPCCC Associate Research Scientist Matthew Harris Goldberg and CBEY Associate Director Heather Fitzgerald.
The Rising Leaders on Social and Environmental Sustainability report was published in 2015. It was a first report that surveyed business students. 80 percent believed that corporations, businesses, and industry should do more about climate change. The World Economic Forum presented it at the World Economic Forum.
There’s real nuance in this data, Cort said. If you’re going to be a business leader, if you’re going to be the executive of this and or an executive of business, you’re going to have to balance these issues, these megatrends in environmental and social sustainability, against the realities of running a business, making a profit or doing whatever your organization has to do. It is incumbent upon these students to figure this out.
Cort, who worked with DeCew for the first report, identified business schools, students in business, and corporations as key stakeholders for the key findings. Business schools can take note of the desire to provide more education in sustainability. 70% of students surveyed wanted more experiential learning in this area.
Multiple authors highlighted a key result: a carbon tax on talent that companies who want to hire business students. Students are willing to accept a lower wage to work in an environment-friendly company, but only 51 percent would be willing to accept a job with a company that uses poor practices. 26 percent said they wouldn’t accept a job at a company where the practices are bad.
Goldberg stated that CBEY provided expertise and interest on topics such as sustainability and social responsibility in relation to business school education. Coming from the world I work in day-to-day, we’re interested in communicating more effectively about climate change. That’s why I brought my perspective to the room as we designed the survey and thought through the implications.
Although Goldberg was not involved in the 2015 report, YPCCC collaborated on both reports. The report this year summarized the data into four key takeaways. The first focused primarily on students in business who believe that corporations should be involved in solving global climate change. They also believe that the most severe climate issues affect regions far from their home.
The second discussed how students in business want sustainability to be integrated into company practices, rather than being an independent goal. The fourth focused on the carbon tax on talent.
GNAM helped facilitate the connection to other business schools in order to provide survey subjects. Cort noted the significance of business schools’ collaboration in distributing the survey to students who evaluated the education that these schools provided. The reports third key finding highlighted students push for more integration of sustainability-focused education within their schools.
Wilkinson stated that the Global Network is approaching its 10th anniversary. It was established in spring 2012. The idea behind the network was to work with top business schools all over the world in order to expand the global perspectives and opportunities for our students. The network now has 32 schools, with offices in 30 countries across six continents.
Survey results showed that 94% of students believe that global warming has already begun.
