Sustainability and Green Business: How MBA Graduates Can Drive Environmental Responsibility

Why shall businesses embrace sustainability?

All organisations worldwide are increasingly concerned about environmental, social and governance issues. According to the McKinsey Global Survey, investment professionals and business executives believe ESG programs will help increase shareholders’ value (Caldera et al. 2019). Additionally, the shareholders will have a higher annual total return. By taking into account how an organisation performs in the social, ecological, and economic surroundings, sustainability in business helps to produce long-term value. In addition, corporate social responsibility also increases as the organisation’s transparency becomes more prominent. Organisations believe in the Triple Bottom Line for measuring their environmental and social impact. The triple bottom line focuses on profit, people and the planet. The firms use these categories to determine the negative impact, if any, they contribute to the environment (Raut et al. 2019). In other words, the companies implement sustainable practices into their business strategies so that it leaves a positive impact on society and it can earn profits in return.

What are the benefits of green business?

Green business has various benefits. It helps in attracting customers because they wish to pay a premium price for green products and services. While providing green products, the companies can build customer loyalty and make more efforts to make the business sustainable (Raut et al. 2019). In other words, sustainability helps eliminate waste and save more money. Workplaces can promote sustainability by recycling ink cartridges, paper, using LED lights instead of fluorescent bulbs, hybrid working, virtual meetings, and the like. In addition to these flexible working environments, improving staff’s mental and physical health, creating a resilient and motivated workforce helps recruitment and retention. Nowadays, organisations prefer having a green strategy as it is significant for investors. Due to this, the business can adopt sustainable policies. Many businesses are growing green to stay ahead of the legislation (Raut et al. 2019). Businesses are aligning with their new sustainable policies to keep the environment around them cleaner and greener. Adopting green marketing strategies helps reduce carbon footprints, which helps save the environment and the triple bottom line.

How MBA students help driving environmental Responsibility

Across the world, companies are integrating sustainable business practices. It has been agreed by many business executives that sustainability helps the business to thrive. MBA is a powerful tool in the business world to drive sustainable change. Business schools are addressing these concerns, and MBA programs are being implemented with sustainability with the motto of creating a generation of responsible leaders across the globe. This suggests that the necessity to incorporate sustainability into the MBA curriculum has been recognised as a result of the growing awareness of it. The curriculum includes themes on specialised courses like corporate social responsibility, sustainable innovation, and preparing students with the information and abilities required to comprehend sustainability. Students who enrol in MBA programmes learn how to argue and reason critically about how business tactics affect society. This will enable future leaders to think about the environment. Whatever the students learn in the MBA course, social responsibility is kept at the core (Shakeel et al. 2020). This is because the world is encountering many challenges ranging from climatic change to inequality in biodiversity. As a result, MBA programmes are made to provide students with knowledge of ESG concerns and to connect that knowledge with the practical skills required to address them.

Skills that the student’s ingrain help in getting access to a large number of career options that are focused on sustainability. In this context, many MBA graduates are looking for organisations and roles that emphasise sustainable management and corporate social university to directly and optimistically effect the environment (Shakeel et al. 2020). The internship placement opportunity given by the business schools enables the students to develop the expertise to develop sustainable practices. Leaders, if successful, are capable of driving sustainability. In other words, a team that adds value to sustainability can help integrate changes that enable the organisation to make a difference and positively impact the world.

MBA programs will persist in integrating sustainability into their programs to create an optimal change in the future. The courses prepare the students in such a way that they can tackle sustainable challenges and think critically about the largest outcome of the work done by them. Students in MBA programmes graduate with the knowledge and abilities necessary to infuse their organisations with sustainability, social responsibility, and environmental awareness. Social responsibility is one of the prime components in advancing towards a greener and cleaner planet.

Acquiring an MBA degree helps professionals integrate sustainability in the workplace (Shakeel et al. 2020). This is because they help spread awareness and education that helps in environmental conservation. A green MBA degree enables students to enter businesses that use innovative ways to deal with complex environmental issues. Sustainability practices are taught to the students so that later on, they can implement them in their work while focusing on environmental, social and economic protection within the organisation. Both the business and the planet benefit from implementing sustainable business practices.

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MBA professionals with advanced business degrees focus on sustainability to integrate environmentally friendly practices into various business areas. The various areas comprise business ethics, business law, marketing, accounting, government relations and accounting. This helps in the creation of a cleaner and greener business process. Sustainability does not focus on recycling, reducing and reusing. Instead, it can be referred to as a mindset taught in class, and the values are further carried ahead in the workplace. An MBA graduate also spreads environmental concerns. He empowers professionals to implement and embrace environmental changes dauntlessly and confidently. Similar to the job market, the environment around us is constantly changing.

Thus, students with an MBA degree are equipped with the knowledge and information required to take action while confronting environmental challenges. A few of the issues that business leaders can deal with are climate change, the protection of wildlife and the promotion of a healthy workplace environment. MBA students in their workplaces educate their colleagues with training sessions, workshops and retreats. They empower, inspire, train, and teach their colleagues so that they can work towards a cleaner and greener environment. An

MBA program provides an inept understanding of the concepts, fields of study, specialised areas of interest, and classes of small sizes for individual attention. The MBA programs provide new advancement opportunities in the workplace. A few of the highest-paid job roles of green MBA include chemical engineers, environment engineers, sustainability managers and sustainability executives. This implies that a sustainable MBA helps address sustainability, social responsibility, and environmental concerns in the workplace.

Some sustainable businesses in the UK

Unilever Plc is a British multinational company aiming to make sustainable living commonplace. According to them, sustainable business helps in driving better performance. They are changing towards using renewable energy and looking for low-carbon ingredients. In addition to this, they are also trying to expand their plant-based range of products. Similarly, Beazley PLC believes in creating a sustainable world and a positive procurement. The Seven Trent PLC, one of the biggest companies in Britain, relies on a green plan as it aims towards sustainability.85 per cent of their energy comes from renewable sources, and they have also pledged to reach zero carbon emissions by 2030.

References

• Caldera, H.T.S., Desha, C. and Dawes, L., 2019. Evaluating the enablers and barriers for successful implementation of sustainable business practice in ‘lean’SMEs. Journal of cleaner production, 218, pp.575-590.
• Raut, R.D., Mangla, S.K., Narwane, V.S., Gardas, B.B., Priyadarshinee, P. and Narkhede, B.E., 2019. Linking big data analytics and operational sustainability practices for sustainable business management. Journal of cleaner production, 224, pp.10-24.
• Shakeel, J., Mardani, A., Chofreh, A.G., Goni, F.A. and Klemeš, J.J., 2020. Anatomy of sustainable business model innovation. Journal of cleaner production, 261, p.121201.

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Author Bio: Meet Mark Edmonds, a dedicated writer at Academic Assignments, your guide to top-notch MBA assignment help. With a passion for sustainable practices, Mark enriches students’ knowledge and empowers them to champion environmental responsibility. From MBA assignments to business plan assignment help, Mark’s expertise fuels academic success and conscious entrepreneurship.