How IIM Mumbai, IIM Ahmedabad, and other B-Schools are waking up to the era of MBA in sustainability

NEW DELHI: In the post-COVID world, the global shift towards environmental social governance (ESG) practices has sparked a transformation in business education. As industries worldwide adapt to post-pandemic realities and stricter environmental standards, management institutes are revamping their curricula to meet these evolving demands.

“Industries are waking up to the realities of environmental, social, and governance challenges as they become financially more material for businesses," said Kaushik Ranjan Bandyopadhyay, associate professor and chairman, Centre for Business Sustainability, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow.

This transformation is driven by government policies pushing for carbon neutrality and net-zero emissions. Anjan Das, alumnus of MBA in sustainability management, IIM Lucknow, said that companies now face mandatory ESG disclosure requirements and report obligations.

Management institutes are responding swiftly to this industry shift as they witness the growing demand for more MBA courses around sustainable management. IIM Mumbai has converted its industrial safety and environmental management course into an MBA in sustainability management from this year. Similarly, Symbiosis Institute of International Business (SIIB) has updated its 15-year-old MBA in energy and environment to reflect this new focus on MBA sustainability management.

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MBA Admissions: The ESG wave

“As industries adopt new ESG frameworks, there is a concomitant demand for a pool of skilled professionals who can take up the challenges on the ESG fronts,” said Bandyopadhyay. An MBA in sustainability is not a conventional management course.

Several fossil fuel companies have started facing the heat from different stakeholders. For instance, ExxonMobil, an American oil and gas multinational corporation, had to face a huge lawsuit for not reflecting the risk in its balance sheet properly, making the stakeholders feel cheated.

Bandyopadhyay explained: “Companies have to understand that these non-financial risks also have financial value. So, despite having the best balance sheet at some point, your business might go bust. Like Coca-Cola, at a point when their balance sheet was soaring in terms of profit, it had to shut down its plants in Kerala and Tamil Nadu because of the depletion of the groundwater table and lack of water for the communities.”

So, moving from a shareholder-centric to a stakeholder-centric business is what sustainable management is all about and the courses are designed to cover these issues, particularly in the Indian context. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has made this transition official by mandating Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reports (BRSR) for the top 1,000 listed companies.

Seema Unnikrishnan, professor and programme chair, MBA in Sustainability Management, IIM Mumbai, said: “We started the sustainability management programme in 2001, it was named those days as the Programme in Industrial Safety and Environmental Management. We are moving to a regime where sustainability aspects are becoming mandatory frameworks. We have moved from environment, health and safety (EHS) to ESG due to international pressures. It's like a wave of ESG-focused companies. Our programme was also renamed in tune with this as the Sustainability Management Programme.

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Sustainability management: Curriculum

At IIM Mumbai, the course has been revamped by adding aspects of environment, climate change, safety, and operations.

"We've introduced specialised ESG courses covering frameworks, standards, and strategies," explains Unnikrishnan.

Sanjay Murthy, professor, IIM Mumbai added, “We've introduced specialised ESG courses covering frameworks, standards, and strategies in the programme. Our first module now includes sustainable development for business, while later modules focus on operations management courses, corporate finance, and project management with a sustainability lens.”

The programme offers students flexibility to choose sustainability-focused electives in their second year, allowing specialisation.”

At IIM Lucknow, an MBA in sustainability management looks at all these aspects, including corporate social responsibility, in the social, environmental and governance sense.

Bandyopadhyay stated that institutes are introducing courses related to ESG, including IIM Bangalore, IIM Ahmedabad and all top IIMs. However, amongst IIMs, Lucknow was the only one to launch a full-fledged programme. With changing industry requirements, every year the course goes through restructuring.

Alka Maurya, director, SIIB, said that looking at the industry demand, they have introduced many new courses within the newly-introduced MBA in sustainability management but these were planned over three to four years.

“The programme on MBA-energy and environment has been renamed MBA sustainability management which incorporates courses related to climate change, environmental impact assessments, renewable and energy management, power sector, ESG guidelines, frameworks and reporting, sustainability standards, and many more,” explained Prakash Rao, head of department of sustainability management, SIIB.

Maurya pointed out that every country has set targets for reducing carbon emission. Since most companies need to comply, SIIB has worked towards launching this course.

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IIM Lucknow, Symbiosis placements

Most institutes have noticed that these courses have 100% placements. Murthy said: “Sustainability standards in the post-pandemic world are very different from those of the pre-COVID era especially in India with the introduction of the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting [BRSR] Standard.” He also added that as far as our institute is concerned, we have had a good placement record for our students doing MBA in sustainability management .

Bandyopadhyay also said that IIM-L has recorded stellar placements in the domain of sustainability, in industries with sustainability verticals, consultancies and ESG rating agencies. Plus, positions offered are comparable to the best in the industry.

At SIIB, until 2023, the top 10% of the students have received an average package of Rs 16 lakh per annum, with a median salary of Rs 13.5 lakh per annum.

Most institutes find big consulting companies and others hiring from their courses. Maurya said, “We constantly get feedback from these companies on which topics should be taught as part of this programme. And we constantly add courses that are required by the industry.”

MBA in Sustainability: Tech integration, future

“MBA in sustainable management is a futuristic course and will continue to grow” , feels Bandyopadhyay. “In addition to offering general management courses, the curriculum stands out in management education by offering specialised courses on systems thinking, social entrepreneurship, externalities, lifecycle management, stakeholder management and public policy.”

Further, technology has penetrated this area because the entire ESG reporting process has become automated and dependent on artificial intelligence and machine learning. “So we are also progressively evolving our curricula to see how we integrate the concerns of AI and machine learning,” he said.

As India is moving towards sustainability, there is talk about a shift towards renewable sources of energy. More companies are talking about not just green infrastructure, but are also incorporating sustainable practices. And with the industry witnessing so many changes, we are foreseeing a positive future for sustainable careers.