How are companies that recruit at Brandeis International Business School (IBS) preparing for the future? Ford Motor Company, the automaker, said recently it would invest nearly $14 billion in the next seven years to more quickly produce fuel-efficient vehicles. JPMorgan Chase, the investment bank, is next year expanding its carbon credit trading business with the acquisition of an Irish-based carbon offset aggregating firm. And PricewaterhouseCoopers, the advisory firm, announced plans to enhance its internal recycling program and eliminate all landfill waste by the year 2013.

These companies, all of which have hired students from IBS, understand that building value for shareholders also means doing well by society and the environment. IBS understands that, too. The school’s Green Global Initiative, launched in 2008, is a multidisciplinary program in research and education committed to inventing new, innovative sustainable corporate practices.

In its inaugural year, the Initiative has brought dozens of eco-industry leaders to campus, yielded cutting-edge research and thought leadership by Brandeis faculty, and raised the profile of IBS’s new M.B.A concentration in Socially Responsible Business—known as the Global Green MBA.

The Initiative is deeply rooted in the values and ideals of Justice Louis Brandeis who believed that companies ought to address broader social purposes beyond profits, according to Benjamin Gomes-Casseres, Professor of International Business at IBS and the Director of the M.B.A. Program. "Justice Louis Brandeis believed that business is an enterprise for social good. He believed in responsible management, not just bottom line management."

"This is an important initiative for our school," adds Preeta Banerjee, Assistant Professor of Strategy. “It is a critical time for our faculty and students to think analytically about the sustainability of industries. We have old-dated methods that do not address these issues. We need to be innovative; and we need to think differently. We need to come up with a new model for doing business.”

IBS’s new Global Green MBA is designed for aspiring leaders in the field of corporate sustainability. The concentration integrates issues such as economic development, social development and corporate governance into the core MBA program. It also provides students with exposure and experience in the emerging green economy.

“We are preparing students to operate in a business environment in which understanding issues such as climate change, water quality, and biodiversity is essential to a company’s success,” says Warren Leon, Adjunct Professor of Business at IBS. “We are also training students to have the right mindset and analytical skills to think about their company in an environmental context.”