MBAs Help Companies Make the Business Case for Green

By Emily Reyna 

March 2010

As the United States struggles through today's tough economic climate, MBA students are seeking career paths that will provide them with challenge and opportunity, but also financial stability. After all, a two-year stint in business school is a big investment and can leave behind a hefty debt. While the new "green economy" is often touted as an engine of job creation, it appears that the most visible jobs in this arena are typically blue collar - solar panel installation, home energy audits, or energy efficiency retrofit work. So how can an MBA capitalize on this new frontier of growth?

My own MBA training and new career provide one small example that points to a huge area of opportunity for all MBAs. Thanks to the support of 
The Consortium, I had the opportunity to earn a dual degree (MBA/MS) at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor Ross School of Business and the School of Natural Resources and Environment. The combined program is called the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. As an Erb student, I learned how to apply my business skills to solving environmental problems and to integrate my knowledge of environmental issues into making business decisions.

While I was in school, many of my fellow students viewed the amorphous "green job" sector as a minor niche reserved for "green MBA" types-students pursuing dual degrees and aiming for positions at renewable energy startups or as a corporate sustainability manager for established companies. However, as commitment to responsible business practices begins to grow within companies of all shapes and sizes, MBAs now have the opportunity, if not obligation, to integrate "green" thinking into all business decisions that are made in the traditional MBA positions -- whether they sit in marketing, product management or finance. 

To provide MBA students with real world training in this area, Environmental Defense Fund (the organization I now work for) has started an innovative summer fellowship program called Climate Corps. Climate Corps recruits talented MBA students from top-ranking business schools and trains them on the basics of energy efficiency for commercial buildings and data centers. MBAs are then placed at leading companies for the summer where they work within a facilities management or corporate sustainability department, to develop practical, actionable energy efficiency plans.

The MBA fellows put to use their finance, change management and project management skills to make sound economic business cases for energy efficiency investments. Fellow recommendations generally focus on the low-hanging fruit: the no-cost or low-cost solutions that quickly can provide companies with loads of savings, reducing a company's environmental impact while lowering operating costs.