Greening the Business Economics Curriculum: A Paradigm for Environmental Stewardship in the 21st Century

Economic growth depends upon the wealth of goods and services that natural resources provide. Yet, over the years, as corporations pursue hefty returns on their investment, they have been depleting the natural resources so vital for economic development. After the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, however, corporations that once viewed environmentalism as a threat to their survival all of a sudden realized sustainability as a means of gaining a competitive edge; it reduced costs and stimulated greater innovation. When the program of action for the Earth Summit was reviewed in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, it was revealed that there was a wide gap between the rhetoric of 1992 and the reality observed in 2002.

Nowadays, however, in addition to their ecological rhetoric of the past, businesses have strongly challenged higher educational institutions to redesign their curriculum: to produce employable graduates armed with the theoretical and practical knowledge that is vital to transforming and creating a socially responsible business environment. The nature of this study was therefore to investigate the mission statements, curriculum contents, research and on-campus outreach operations of business economics programs in the San Francisco Bay Area liberal arts universities and colleges. The purpose was to discover if their business economics programs are committed to producing experts that can formulate and implement sustainable development strategies and actions to conserve and manage natural resources for corporate environmentalism, accountability, and social responsibility. Stated differently, the sole aim of the study was to investigate if the business economics programs in the San Francisco Bay Area liberal arts universities and colleges contain enough subjects and experiential learning opportunities on environmental management and sustainable development. Having such is vital to making future business leaders aware and actively engaged in environmentally sustainable business operating models.

The results of the content analysis of the catalogues of the five liberal arts colleges and universities indicate that none of them have attempted to articulate in their mission statements the role of environmentally sustainable business economics programs. A further analysis of the curriculum, research, and on-campus and outreach operations of the business economics programs in the San Francisco Bay Area liberal arts universities and colleges clearly indicate a majority of the five have little or no institutional commitment to environmental performance and sustainability and what they offer to the students is largely anecdotal. The conclusion is that if these business economics programs want to be globally competitive, then the liberal arts universities and colleges need to provide their graduates with green curriculum resources and experiential learning opportunities. It is also vital to make the graduates to be proactive change agents of sustainability for their future employers; to help businesses to design environmentally viable enterprises; and to conduct green or stewardship initiatives in their own business ventures. If these colleges and universities can redesign the disciplines so that environmentally sustainability is the major focus of their business economics curricula, it is possible that they would play pivotal role in meeting the sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

As society is pursuing economic growth it has been depleting the natural resources upon which the base of its future economic and social development depends. (For a detailed analysis of the relationship between the environment and sustainable economic development, see Pearce and Warford, 1993; and Desta, 1999). Thus, over the years, economic growth has been consuming its foundations, thus putting enormous pressure on the natural resource base for economic and social development (Bazerman & Hoffman, 1999).

In 1968, Garrett Hardin in his article “The Tragedy of the Commons,” persuasively argued that a society that permits perfect freedom of action in activities that adversely influenced common properties was eventually doomed to failure. In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm got involved in providing a framework for the comprehensive consideration of environmental pollution and degradation, and the depletion of natural resources. As the result of the Stockholm conference, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was established in 1972, together with limited funds to finance major projects. The goal of UNEP was to inspire nations to improve their current quality of life without compromising that of future generations (Modak & Biswas, 1999).

However, it was in 1987 that the sustainable development paradigm received a large boost and a widely accepted agenda for future development by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). According to the Brundtland report, Our Common Future, sustainable development was articulated as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). According to Edwards, sustainable development, as indicated in the Brundtland report, is an umbrella term that brings together ecological, environmental, economic, and social equity (Edwards, 2005).

In June 1992, under the auspices of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, more than 180 nations, development agencies, non-government organizations (NGOs), transitional corporations, educators, and independent-sector groups, as well as the world media, met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and initiated a program of action framed on the 1972 Stockholm conference and the 1987 Brundtland report. Stated differently, the Earth Summit of 1992 developed a comprehensive blueprint (program of action) also known as Agenda 21 in order to chart future actions of sustainable development worldwide for the twenty-first century. The first section of Agenda 21 outlines a structure for attaining sustainable development together with estimates of the costs and scale of the implementation recommendations. The second section includes conservation and resources management proposals. The third section is devoted to recognizing and strengthening the role of women, youth, and indigenous peoples. The last section outlines the steps necessary for implementation and the capital requirement for such implementation (UNCED, 1992).

After the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 and Agenda 21, corporations that once viewed environmentalism as a threat to their survival all of a sudden viewed the sustainability imperative as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in reducing costs and stimulating greater innovation. As argued by Demoss and Nicholson:

…the business community has begun to recognize and make environmental issues a priority in its strategic decisions. Leading organizations are shifting away from their adversarial stance toward environmental concerns and are adopting more environmentally sustainable practices, both as a hedge against future costs and as a means of creating competitive advantage in the market place (July/August 2005, 338).

In addition, businesses and industries are in the process of recognizing that creating a socially healthy environment is most likely to improve public image, and thus generate goodwill among employees and the local community. As stated by Porter, by creatively and proactively attending to environmental exigencies, companies are in the process of eliminating waste and using resources more efficiently. Also, businesses are likely to streamline production processes, lower costs, produce better quality goods and services, gain the first-mover advantage, and enhance their global competitiveness (Porter, 2006). Appropriately, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) launched the Business Charter for Sustainable Development, a set of 16 principles to guide company strategies and operations towards sustainable development. In 1995, the lexicon of global business and sustainable development was established by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in collaboration with the United Nations Environmental Programme, non-governmental organizations, and industry experts, to challenge business schools around the world to prove that their students have the quality of leadership around the business vision that the corporate world needs. Which is, of course, to help business continue to be profitable and generate value in the long term (Willums, 1998).

If the rhetoric of businesses in Rio were implemented, one can say that Agenda 21 is likely to depict a high point of hope for the future of the world’s environment. As narrated by Bruno and Karliner:

The Summit’s negotiators produced agreements on climate and biodiversity, which established binding frameworks for tackling some of the world’s most serious ecological threats. In addition, the several-hundred-page text known as Agenda 21 set forth a series of guidelines that have served as tools for local environmental movements to use to pressure their governments into taking actions on key issues, from halting forest loss, to preserving the rights of indigenous people, to managing and preventing toxic waste (Bruno & Karliner, 2002).

The program of action was reviewed in 2002 (i.e., ten years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio), at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, or also known as Earth Summit II, held from August 26, 2002 to September 4, 2002 (Strachan, 2005). To the dismay of many, it was fully ascertained that there was a wide gap between the rhetoric of 1992 and the reality observed in 2002. As stated by Bruno and Karliner:

The governments negotiating Earth Summit II had a steep hill to climb; they were confronted by the stinging reality that in ten years since Rio, the global ecological balance had deteriorated and world poverty had deepened. In that time, the so-called ‘sustainable development’ solution languished on the margins of an international politics dominated by anti-environmentalist forces (Strachan, 2005).

Similarly, comparing the achievement of businesses in mitigating their abuse on the environment between 1992 and 2002, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) fully affirmed “there is a growing gap between the efforts of business and industry to reduce their impact on the environment and the worsening state of the planet” (UNEP, 2002). Thus, the questions that need to be addressed are: Why are companies resistant to the environmental challenges of sustainable development, despite their ecological rhetoric and despite their emphasis on social responsibility? Is it possible that because their employees were not adequately prepared by higher educational institutions--to have the awareness and to acquire the conceptual and practical knowledge--that they are not effective in helping their companies to find solutions to environmental problems?

For example, in the United States, since the Rio Earth Summit and Agenda 21, education for sustainable development has been under funded and under-supported within and outside of academic institutions. An authentic institutional commitment to sustainable development has been very rare (Calder & Clugston, 2006). As reported by National Wildlife Federation, “little has been known, until now, about broader trends in environmental performance and sustainability in higher education and, consequently, there has been no baseline from which to measure progress across a range of issues” (Maclay, 2002).

Though ironic, sustainable development may not have materialized in colleges because higher educational institutions also

…contain enormous brain power, but a dearth of vision, courage, and moral responsibility. By and large, they seem to be more concerned about training students to fit into a status quo world that is unraveling, rather than forthrightly addressing the cause of this unraveling and offering our young people a sense of hope and purpose. Our universities have great leverage but they fail to use it in creative and exciting ways (Uhl & Anderson, 2000).

If higher educational institutions could commit to producing experts who can develop the environmental sustainability movement beyond the campus and promote an environmentally healthy atmosphere, it is possible that graduates can help businesses to infuse environmental sustainability into the larger society, creating economic and environmental investments that could make the best returns in the future. As indicated by the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (AULS):

Universities have a major role in the education, research, policy formation, and information exchange necessary to make these goals possible. Thus, university leaders must initiate and support mobilization of internal and external resources so that their institutions respond to this urgent challenge…Convene university faculty and administrators with environmental practitioners to develop interdisciplinary approaches to curricula, research initiatives, operations, and outreach activities that support an environmentally sustainable future (ULSF, 1994).

Liberal arts colleges are agents of the dissemination of knowledge, determine the future direction of society, and employ cutting-edge thinkers. Thus, it can be assumed that business economics programs in liberal arts colleges are preparing their students to acquire intellectual tools and practical skills to become caring and competent stewards of the planet so that they can act to transform the environment and create socially responsible business enterprises.

For this study, business economics programs in liberal arts universities and colleges were chosen. Instead of being the academic islands of the past, current liberal arts colleges have business economics programs that integrate the liberal arts such as languages, communication skills, and cultural diversity with large doses of the sciences, professional studies, and business courses (Lang, 1999).

In addition to their high-quality interdisciplinary programs, to fulfill the demand for a knowledgeable workforce, to remain very competitive, and to remain financially stable, more recently, business economics programs within the liberal arts colleges are providing graduates with skills that are marketable and highly valued-- similar to other elite graduate institutions. In addition, by cultivating their graduates with environmental studies or environmental science courses, business economics programs at liberal arts colleges are most likely to gain a competitive advantage in the future. That is, if they can integrate their course offerings with the environment-related issues. As argued by Shriberg in 2002, “Since sustainability is by definition a long-term view of the environment, to be successfully implemented and maintained, it must become part of the culture of the campus.” Since the goal of liberal arts curricula is to develop the student as a “whole person,” classroom and campus boundaries must not limit the institutional responsibility for intellectual growth but need to incorporate experiential, learning-oriented, practical solutions to environmental problems.

The purpose of the study is to investigate if schools of business economics housed in liberal arts colleges are positioned to train future leaders for careers throughout the world focused on attaining the knowledge and skills necessary for resolving environmentally sustainable business development issues. More specifically, the study will attempt to examine the mission statements and curriculum of junior and senior business economics students at liberal arts colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area. The cardinal questions of the study are then:

As outlined by Calder and Clugston, concern for the environment in the United States was strong in the early 1970s, almost absent in the 1980s, and blossomed in the 21^st century. But in the 21^st century more research is devoted to sustainability in the sciences and, to a lesser extent, the social sciences and humanities. The sustainability courses taught in sciences are largely focused on biology and chemistry and are not focused on sustainable development; and they do not make integrated thinking and decision making an essential part of their approach (Calder & Richard, 2006). The University of California at Berkeley, which is lauded for its exemplary lands and ground management program by the National Wildlife Federation, had very limited campus-wide programs in 2002 such as 1) habitat restoration, 2) native landscaping, identification, and removal of invasive exotic species, 3) integrated pest management, and 4) provision of food and shelter to attract wildlife (Maclay, 2002).

There is no doubt that developing graduates who can implement a paradigm of sustainability is a crucial need for creating a more humane and environmentally healthy future society, yet educational curricula do not seem to adequately address this need. For example, as documented by Rowe in 2002, “recent national surveys show that most institutions of higher education have done nothing to systematically provide this knowledge. In other words, at most institutions of higher education, students can graduate with an undergraduate degree and be both environmentally illiterate and unaware of resource distribution inequities.”

More recently, based on the assumption that global business will begin demanding sustainability within the next decade, some higher educational institutions are attempting to integrate environmental sustainability as part of the academic mission. For example, the environmental mission statement of Emory University states:

All students, faculty, and employees are provided opportunities to become environmentally literate and where environmental leadership is seen as a continuous, participatory process of learning; environmental studies are available through strong undergraduate programs, graduate-level and professional specialization in environmental issues, and diverse opportunities for environmental learning across the curriculum; and environmentally-oriented faculty and student research is encouraged and supported (Second Nature, 2001).

Some colleges have gone further to operationally define the institutions’ environmental mission statements and map out a strategic plan. For instance, Prescott College, in addition to incorporating sustainability in its mission and strategic plans, has identified the following objectives, attributes, and values:

Other universities infuse it into the curricula by offering one or two courses related to sustainability or even offering it as part of the interdepartmental major or minor degree requirements. For example, Kenan-Flagler Business school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the school of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan Business School offer interdisciplinary, sustainability-related courses, and practical careers on such issues as urban reinvestment and minority economic development, environmental management systems, social marketing, life cycle management, finance and sustainability, and sustainable development (Business School, 2006).

At Northern Arizona University (NAU), faculty and administrators have been working and strategizing together to raise the general awareness of the campus towards sustainability. As discussed by Rowe in 2002, “NAU is a good example of an institution that is changing the organizational climate via both the attainment of environmental literacy by faculty across the disciplines, and the use of professional development to help faculty integrate sustainability concepts into courses. This is a powerful strategy to help students internalize the sustainability paradigm.”

In order to integrate sustainability with other fields of study, a number of educational institutions are offering interdepartmental minors in environmental sustainability studies. “An advantage to developing interdepartmental minors in environmental sustainability is the opportunity to support cross-disciplinary work in environmental studies and to bring together students to share their diverse perspectives as they contribute to a common, integrated, closing course of this cluster” (Rowe, 2002). In addition, students who take interdisciplinary courses and are involved in undertaking environmentally related research are more humane and develop an increased caring about the future of society and have an increased willingness to participate in solving societal and environmental problems (Rowe, 1999).

Based on the review of the literature, the following statement abstracts the theoretical framework for examining the variance in the dependent variable, the existence of environmental sustainability in the liberal arts business schools will be assessed using the following attributes: 1) sustainability in the academic mission, 2) sustainability in the curriculum, 3) interdependent majors in environmental studies, 4) interdependent minors in environmental studies, 5) campus-wide environmental initiatives, 6) sustainability in community outreach services, 7) business student empirical research in sustainability, 8) faculty research in sustainability, and 9) professional environmentally-oriented opportunities offered to business faculty.

Content analysis is used to assess the availability (or lack thereof) of environmentally sustainable business economics courses in the San Francisco Bay Area liberal arts universities and colleges. Content analysis is generally defined as a systematic, replicable research method used to determine the presences of certain words or concepts within texts. Content analysis also enables researchers to sift through large volumes of data and can be used to examine trends and patterns in documents (Stemler, 2001). As discussed by Stemler, “three kinds of units are employed in content analysis: Sampling units (analysis of words, sentences, or paragraphs), contexts (analysis of sentences or entire statements), and recoding units (analysis of purposes of the content to be analyzed).” In order to make valid inferences from the various documents analyzed on sustainability, this study uses the sampling and recording units method (Stemler, 2001). To achieve consistent results, the classification and recording of the documents were undertaken by the primary researcher.

The five liberal arts universities and colleges within the San Francisco Bay Area chosen for the study are Dominican University of California, Holy Names University, Mills College, the University of Notre Dame, and St. Mary’s College of California. The central question of the study is: Are the business programs housed in the San Francisco Bay Area liberal arts universities and colleges offering environmentally sustainable, development-related courses to train their future graduates? Specifically, the study is focused to answer the following questions:

Because liberal arts colleges and universities are uniquely positioned to create all-rounded citizens, one would assume that they are likely to take an active role in devising and demonstrating more environmentally sustainable practices, while modeling solutions to environmental problems (NWF, 2006). In short, liberal arts colleges, being the champion of the all-rounded education, would lead the way toward ensuring that environmental sustainability courses are offered as fundamental components of their core curricula. As shown in Table 1, however, the San Francisco Bay Area liberal arts fall short of articulating environmental sustainability as an important part of their academic mission statements. For instance, the business and economics departments of the Holy Names University mentions only very peripheral phrases in its mission statement, such as offering “socially responsible business across curriculum.” Mills College, in passing, refers to “the importance of global issues, (and) provid[ing] an understanding of the natural world” in its mission statements (HNU, 2004-2006; MC, 2005-2006). On the other hand, the University of Notre Dame, Dominican University, and Saint Mary’s College of California hardly articulate in their mission statements what their vision for the future is on the issues of sustainability (NWF, 2006).

An analysis of the business and economic curriculum at liberal arts colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay Area indicate that sustainability and environmental issues are not offered as a major concentration of the business or economics programs, but are only available to students on an ad hoc basis. In other words, though some of the liberal arts business economics programs seem to support some environment-related courses, their efforts do not seem to achieve their full potential because the courses are not integrated with the overall mission statements of the college or university.

Moreover, the courses offered on sustainability in these five schools are not the prime focus of the business economics curriculum. The courses offered are not coordinated with the other courses offered in the business economics programs. For example, Dominican University offers a course on sustainable development (Bus 3016) and social marketing (Bus 4015), Mills College offers environmental economics (Econ 153) and environmental policy analysis (PPOL 150), but these courses are hardly integrated with other courses offered in the business economics programs. The National Wildlife Federation made a similar statement about other higher educational institutions, “Until now, campus environmental information has been largely anecdotal, based on case studies and informed guesses” (NWF, 2006).

Of the other universities and colleges, Holy Names University offers a course on business, government, society (BSAD 151); the Notre Dame University offers a course on the legal environment of business (GB 183); and Saint Mary’s College offers a course on ethical, social, and political issues in business (BusAd 181 and 182). Yet these courses seem to address environmental issues on the periphery as part of their social obligation and thus are not fully integrated with other business management courses. However, it needs to be mentioned that though environmental courses are offered by the science departments and are not integrated into the business curriculum, these colleges and universities encourage their students to minor in the environmental studies programs of the science departments (See Table 1). The exception is Holy Names University, which offers no such encouragement.

As noted by the National Wildlife Federation “the nation’s institutions of higher education, through their teaching, operations and research are moving forward with programs that balance human needs with sustaining the health of our environment” (NWF, 2006). Content analysis of the catalogue of the liberal arts colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay Area indicate that there is no significant teaching or research on sustainability undertaken by business economics students. However, though not conspicuous in sustainable community outreach services or in campus-wide sustainability programs (i.e., promoting alternative transportation or using alternative sources of energy), the five schools seem to have active recycling programs. But, as argued by Shrilberg, if the institutions would begin to join campus sustainability forces and undertake far-reaching efforts, such as purchasing organic food, then it could be assumed that higher educational institutions are committed to sustainability (Shriberg, 2002).

Based on information obtained using the Internet, it is not clear whether professional sustainability development funds are offered to faculty. Also not clear is whether the release time to learn about sustainability is offered to faculty, though some faculty are involved in environmentally sustainable research-related activities. For example, two professors at the Dominican University have been intensively involved in internalizing environmental issues in the economics courses that they teach and have been struggling to integrate environmental issues into some business management decision courses. Some faculty at Mills College has undertaken significant research on the environmental impacts of trade liberation policies, and of economics policies for sustainable development. At Saint Mary’s, faculties have done very instructive research in several areas such as

Content Analysis of Sustainable Development Programs Offered by the San Francisco Bay Area Liberal Arts Universities in Business Departments

	Dominican	Holy Names	Mills	Notre Dame De Namur (NDNU)	St. Mary’s
Assessment constructs
Academic Mission Statements on sustainability	Sustainability or environmental education is not mentioned.	Not specific enough, but mentions “Socially responsible business across curriculum”	Not specific enough, but states “ the importance of global issues, provide an understanding of the natural world…”
Sustainable Curriculum: 1) Courses on sustainable development 2) Sustainability issues are integrated into core courses 3) Offering of a major (concentration) in Business sustainable development 4) Offering of a minor in sustainable development	Bus 3016: Sustainable Development and Bus 4015: Social Marketing Environmental Studies	BSAD 151: Business, Government, and Society	Econ 153: Environmental Economics and PPOL 150: Environmental Policy analysis Environmental science	GB 183: Legal Environment of Business Environmental Studies	BusAd 181 or BusAd 182: Ethical, Social, Political Issues in Business and B152: Conservation Science Environmental science and studies programs
Campus-wide sustainable environmental operations:	Campus recycling programs	Campus-wide recycling programs	Recycling activities on campus	Recycling programs on campus	Campus recycling programs
Sustainable community outreach services	Students participate in environmental cleanups of Marin’s beaches and open spaces and	Comm 196: Internship			Internships are available to offer first-hand experience in a variety of fields.
Research by business students	Bus 4999: Independent Study and research paper for Bus 3016			GB 195: Special Topics in Business	Bus 197: Special study
Faculty sustainability research	Research on; Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development		1) Environmental Impacts of Trade Liberations and Policies …” 2) Economics Policies for Sustainable…”		1) Optimal environmental policies in a heterogeneous product market 2) National environmental targets and international emissions reduction instruments, 2005 3) Environmental impact analysis; Marine pollution 4) Fueling Global Warming 5) Mitigating the Impact of Offshore Oil Development, 2003

A content analysis of the mission statements, curricular contents, research, and on-campus and outreach operations of the business economics programs studied clearly indicate the majority of the five liberal arts colleges have little or no institutional commitment to environmental performance and sustainability. Similar to what Rowe has found in other higher educational institutions, most students are “still taught to be ‘armchair pontificators’ or critical thinkers looking for careers within existing job offerings instead of learning how to become positive agents of change who can change institutions and create new jobs necessary to a sustainable future” (Rowe,1999). The conclusion is that if these business economics programs want to be competitive, then these institutions need to provide their graduates with green curriculum resources, experiential learning, environmental learning opportunities, and a “critical and political education that examines the origins of the environmental problematic and prepares learners for an active role” (Springett, 2005).

It is also vital to make business economics graduates be proactive change agents of sustainability for their future employers; to help businesses to design environmentally viable enterprises; and to conduct green or stewardship initiatives in their own business ventures. If these liberal arts institutions desire to become globally recognized, the key is with environmentally sustainable educational programs. Finally, in order to accomplish this for the pinnacle of environmental sustainability, they need to strategically redesign their mission statements so that the future vision of the colleges revolves around environmental sustainability. In order to integrate with other departments, business economics educational programs in liberal arts colleges need to create organizational changes and encourage their faculty to attend professional sustainable development workshops so they are on the forefront of sustainability in their teaching, research, and community outreach endeavors. Given these, business economics schools will play a pivotal role in meeting the sustainable challenges of the twenty-first century. They will redesign the disciplines so that environmental sustainability is the major focus of the business economics curricula. Their graduates can effectively handle the myriad challenges and issues they will confront in their careers (DeMoss & Nicholson 2005). In addition, the educated students can serve as leverage for business enterprises and have profound implications for maintaining sustainable social and environmental returns.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the insightful and challenging comments of the three anonymous reviewers, who have undoubtedly improved the quality of the paper. Any errors of fact or judgment are mine alone.

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	Volume 1, Issue 1, 2007

	Greening the Business Economics Curriculum: A Paradigm for Environmental Stewardship in the 21^st Century

	Asayehgn Desta, Dominican University of California, desta@dominican.edu