In recent years, corporate sustainability has become a key business concern. Here’s how the MBA program at Copenhagen Business School is focused on teaching sustainability and socially responsible leadership.
Corporate sustainability is an integral part of business today, but it hasn’t always been that way.
For many years, sustainability was regarded as a voluntary endeavor, existing on the periphery of business rather than integrated within it. This is a fact that Dr. Andreas Rasche is all too aware of. Currently the Professor of Business in Society at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in Denmark, Andreas has studied sustainability for 20 years. He has seen corporate sustainability go from a side concern to an essential focus of many businesses.
“The field is really moving into the mainstream, and it’s moving to the core of organizations,” he explains. “This is something that we have seen over the last years, which of course, makes it incredibly exciting these days to teach it.” (03:30)
In addition to his role as Professor of Business in Society, Andreas is also the Associate Dean of the full-time MBA at CBS. The CBS MBA is notable for being one of the first MBA programs in the world to integrate sustainability into its core curriculum. Rather than being an optional elective, sustainability is a mandatory part of the program. Like in the broader business world, at CBS, sustainability has gone from an optional activity to a business fundamental.
Andreas doesn’t see the importance of corporate sustainability waning anytime soon. He says this continued relevance fuels his passion for educating the next generation of socially responsible leaders at CBS.
“What still drives me today is simply the relevance of the problems,” he says. “If you look at environmental and social problems, and also governance problems with regard to corporations, we see that these problems are actually always around us. And some of them are getting more severe over time.” (00:28)
Although many Scandinavian MBA programs put corporate sustainability at the heart of their curricula, this isn’t the case everywhere. A 2022 survey found that just 39% of students believe their faculty is as concerned as they are about climate change. Meanwhile, 70% want more experiential learning based on sustainability.
There is a disconnect between what MBA students and what most business schools offer. Many schools still classify sustainability as an elective, not a fundamental part of the core curriculum. But according to Andreas, understanding sustainability helps students to “fully understand the context in which businesses operate.” (04:20)
“If you work out a company strategy or a company supply chain strategy, then you need to consider sustainability factors,” he continues. “And this is, I think, something that all MBA students, first of all, need to be aware of, but also need to be able to put into action.” (04:47)
Putting things into action is an integral part of any MBA program. As a practical degree, it requires students to not only grasp new concepts but learn how to apply them in a business context. At CBS, this is achieved through business simulations. Andreas says simulations help to bring abstract concepts into clearer view.
“When you first discuss with [students] things like scope one, two, and three emissions, climate mitigation strategies, and climate adaptation strategies, a lot of this is still quite abstract – even if you back it up with examples and cases,” he says. (05:53)
The simulations work to make things more concrete. In one simulation, CBS students are tasked with managing the CO2 emissions of a hotel. They must integrate net zero targets into the day-to-day operations of the business. Ultimately, this task helps students understand the trade-offs managers must make when striving to achieve sustainability goals. It’s the perfect example of how an MBA program helps students tackle real-world business challenges.
We’ve already learned that sustainability is a central tenet of the Copenhagen MBA. But CBS students can also dig deeper into the topic as part of a Concentration. Concentrations bundle various courses to let students specialize their MBA.
Andreas says this approach has long-term benefits for students. Choosing a Concentration aligns students “towards the job market and the actual tasks that they will have to then fulfill in practice.” (07:12)
Governance and Sustainability is one of the four Concentrations CBS MBA students can choose from. By bringing together different environmental, social, and governance (ESG) electives in one Concentration, students can better understand how the three important concepts are interrelated.
Andreas says that this Concentration provides several real-world benefits for students. They learn how to prepare a board of directors for ESG considerations, how to communicate the importance of ESG to senior managers, and how to do a “deep dive” into sustainable finance.
The goal of the CBS MBA is not just to produce graduates that can thrive in business. It’s also to produce graduates who recognize the importance of socially responsible leadership and can apply those principles in their future roles to promote corporate sustainability.
Andreas outlines four qualities of a responsible leader:
This fourth quality is perhaps the most critical aspect of socially responsible leadership. In such a rapidly evolving field, leaders must be prepared to keep learning, asking questions, and expanding their knowledge.
ESG considerations have never been so important for companies. As Andreas puts it, “ESG sustainability is nothing that exists detached from business – it is business.” (15:05)
To learn more about CBS’ approach to responsible leadership, feel free to reach out to one of our CBS MBA ambassadors. They will be happy to answer any questions or queries you might have.
