A recent article posted in the Globe & Mail on the MBA schools that made the sustainability ranking draws a clear dividing line between those which make it a priority to weave social, environmental and ethical issues into the core curriculum, with sustainability ingrained in course work, and those who don’t.

According to the 2012 survey of MBA programs by Corporate Knights magazine, one-third of MBA programs appear to make no mention of sustainability while only another 31 per cent offered a course on ethics.

While some schools continue with traditional MBA programs, Jeremy Runnalls, managing editor of the magazine, reports “we’re seeing growth in the top half of schools.”

For another consecutive year, since the magazine first launched this survey in 2003, York University’s Schulich School of Business came out as a leader in this area.

And up from 20th place last year, the Sobey School of Business in Halifax jumped to ninth spot in the Corporate Knights ranking, with sustainability a campus-wide priority at Saint Mary’s University.

According to York University’s Dean Dezso Horvath, those schools which are not incorporating sustainability into their curriculum are not training people for the 21st Century and are not going to have graduates who are going to be attractive.

For a growing number of ‘Gen Y’ers’ who often consider an organization’s social responsibility initiatives when weighing job offers, it would seem reasonable and profitable for higher education to ensure programs of study offer an environmental focus.

And they are out there.

Such as Ryerson’s Certificate in Public Relations now includes a course on Corporate Social Responsibility which explores developing strategies to address the needs of stakeholders, including clients, shareholders, employees, activists, the community, and the environment.

With sustainability apparently still in the initial stages of getting woven into the curriculum of our country’s MBA and other professional programs, how is it doing at the public school level where some might say it counts the most?

Nonprofit organization Green Teacher located in Toronto, Ontario has been actively run by volunteers for 22 years in helping teachers in Canada and the US, as well as Australia and New Zealand, promote environmental awareness among young people aged 6-19.

Tim Grant, co-editor of Green Teacher magazine, says it’s important to provide tools that accommodate the diverse interests among teachers.

“We really try to appeal to both the formal and non-formal educators whose needs are so diverse. What is going to reach a class of kindergarteners is not going to work for a grade six class. And topics of interest range by age as well so our strategies and activities reflect this.”

Many of today’s MBA graduates and other professionals will join the corporate workforce and become strategic decision makers and leaders who will embed sustainability into the operations of organizations, from the building in which they operate to the supply chain used for sourcing materials.

But critics of environmental sustainability and social responsibility initiatives often point to them as a guise to the underlying goal of generating goodwill amongst consumers and making a profit. They argue that if shareholder interests are at odds with those of the general public, it is unlikely executives will favour the latter.

However Andreas Souvaliotis, founder of the AIRMILES for Social Change, at Ryerson University’s Institute for the Study of Corporate Social Responsibility, lets us see a different view.

With reference to Philips, Nissan and Bullfrog Power in his article How I Went Green for Profit , he says all of these enterprises are designed to make money, and lots of it; but they can only make that money for their shareholders by making the world a better place.

“The more of their better light bulbs, better cars and better electricity we buy, the more money they make – and the bigger their positive impact on our world.”

Business and environment can coexist. In the next few years we will surely see a more prevalent focus on environmental education, from grade school right through to MBA programs, which will help students formulate thoughts on sustainable development and the impact their decisions as professionals have upon our relationship with the environment.