Stewardship Survey Names Yale School of Management Among Best MBA Programs for Environmental Management Training

New Haven, CT - October 31, 2001 - The Yale School of Management is being honored today by The Aspen Institute in New York City and The World Resource Institute in Washington, D.C. with an award for its outstanding leadership in training MBA students in environmental management skills.

The Yale School of Management is among just five schools to earn the "cutting-edge MBA program" distinction in the survey, Beyond Grey Pinstripes 2001: Preparing MBAs for Social and Environmental Stewardship. The report, released today, is the only survey that evaluates how well masters in business administration (MBA) programs are integrating social and environmental coursework, activities, and research into business curricula.

The survey, first conducted in 1998, is a joint project of The Aspen Institute Initiative for Social Innovation through Business (Aspen ISIB) and World Resources Institute (WRI). Every accredited business school in the United States (more than 300), as well as over 60 international schools, was surveyed.

"The mission of the Yale School of Management is to educate leaders for business and society. From our mission flows a commitment to integrate environmental impact management as part of our core MBA program," said Dean Jeffrey E. Garten. "We're proud of this award and how we are preparing Yale MBA students to lead in a world where environmental stewardship skills are just as important as management, financial, or marketing skills."

Through exceptional institutional support and faculty engagement, the School of Management teamed up with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies to create the three-year, joint-degree Program in Management and Environment (PM&E). The PM&E courses, guest speakers, research symposia and conferences allow students to develop a range of frameworks for integrating management and environmental decision-making skills.

"The school is being recognized for its leadership in preparing MBA students for a global marketplace where social and environmental issues are linked to business success," said Jonathan Lash, President of WRI. "This interdependency necessitates a broadening of the traditional MBA program, and Yale's School of Management is extraordinary in its successful academic integration of environmental, social, and sustainability management issues."

Beyond Grey Pinstripes 2001 reports that a growing number of innovative MBA programs are broadening their curriculum to include sustainability topics, although the overall number remains quite low. It stressed that companies need managers with an ability to understand diverse cultural, social and political systems to cope with vastly different infrastructure and resource issues. However, the report concludes that few MBAs are being trained to think about such things and few have the skills to successfully tackle these issues.

"Beyond Grey Pinstripes is really a call to action to schools to close the gap between what business leaders say they need in recruits, what the global marketplace requires, and what MBA programs are delivering. We need more programs like Yale's," said Judith Samuelson, Executive Director of Aspen ISIB.

Other MBA programs to have received the Environmental Management Award include the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School, the George Washington University's School of Business and Public Management, the University of Jyväsklä's School of Business and Economics (Finland), and the University of Michigan Business School.

The awards were given today at ceremonies hosted by Citigroup in New York City. It was followed by a symposium on "A Changing World: Do Tomorrow's Leaders Have Yesterday's Skills?"

The mission of the Yale School of Management is to educate leaders for business and society.

The mission of The Aspen Institute Initiative for Social Innovation through Business is to increase the supply of business leaders who understand, and seek to balance, the complex relationship between business success and social and environmental progress. Aspen ISIB envisions business leaders with the skills, values and long-term view to tackle complex global problems and who employ social innovation as a key element of business strategy. Aspen ISIB works with educators to integrate social impact management into research and teaching.  It convenes business faculty and leaders, invests in innovation in MBA programs, and conducts research to understand and track changes in business education and student attitudes.

The World Resource Institute is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the Earth and improve people's lives. For more than a decade, WRI's Sustainable Enterprise Program has harnessed the power of business to create profitable solutions to environment and development challenges. WRI is the only organization that brings together corporations, entrepreneurs, investors, and business schools to accelerate change in business practice.

Contacts:
Yale SOM:
Media Relations
Tel 203 432 6010
Fax 203 432 9992
som.extra@yale.edu