Sustainability the Core Issue

THE financial crisis has heralded the need for a new approach to the promotion of sustainable business practices.

“Sustainability issues won’t go away; everything we do needs to be looked at through that particular lens,” says Prof Gavin Staude, director of the Rhodes Investec Business School (RIBS).

“We’re just coming through a financial crisis that has seen a strong emergence of the greed versus need argument. We can’t make profits at any cost, but have to dampen our profit ambitions to sustain the environment and do what is right in terms of social responsibility.”

“Publicity about global warming and climate change has contributed to increased focus on sustainability on programmes like the MBA, but many schools address it implicitly rather than explicitly, he says.”

“Until now they have tended to weave it into courses such as strategy or human resources.” For the past five years RIBS has offered an MBA elective in environmental management, but has repositioned itself to take a more holistic view under the banner of leadership for sustainability.

“One cannot talk about the environment in isolation. We need to go back to the triple bottom line - to balance financial performance with social responsibility and compliance to environmental best practice.”

With about half of RIBS’ student body in the environmental management stream, it remains a popular option.

“We’re the only school in Africa that has looked at sustainability explicitly from an environmental perspective and will continue to offer the six modules - environmental law, environmental economics, environmental risk assessment, environmental management systems, principles of sustainability and environmental project management”

From now on, however, all other courses will embrace sustainability, says Staude.

“It’s the only way forward. Sustainability will no longer be out on a limb but will permeate everything. For example, we won’t be teaching marketing without strong reference to responsible consumption. We’re sticking to the fundamentals but adding to that the notion of the need for business to be responsible about what they set out to produce and the needs they aim to meet”

Source: Business Day, Thursday 6 November 2008, p.20