Ninety-five percent of 527 MBA students surveyed by PR firm Hill & Knowlton ranked “career opportunites” among the most important factor in choosing an employer whereas only 34 percent viewed a company’s green policies in the same fashion. The students surveyed were chosen from the 12 top international business schools, and 20 percent of the American students said they would be less inclined to take an offer from a company with poor environmental practices as opposed to 42 percent from Europe and 38 percent from Asia. Other considerations that ranked higher than green policies were corporate culture and benefits.Two-thirds of the students surveyed said they’d never work for a tobacco firm, and nearly half of the U.S. students said they would not work in the energy or automotive industries, which might have more to do with Enron and hard times for the Big Three than it does the environment.
But according to Rich Leimsider of the Aspen Institute, MBA’s ranking environmental policies as low-priority won’t hamper the growth of sustainable business practices. “The good news is that the green revolution is moving beyond corporate reputation issues.”
By 2030, the number of jobs in the green sector could reach 40 million, and according to this article, many of those jobs may be filled by professionals from other fields.
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Comments
I recently attended a presentation by Aspen on this study, and even though the results were known ahead of time I did take comfort in knowing that the “green” issue was occupying space in the minds of MBAs.
The problem right now is that being green has historically not paid the green and so many shy away. Once these MBAs can see the green in the green, then you will have a shift for the better.
r
China @ Crossroads January 21st, 2008www.china-crossroads.com