Columbia Business School Breaks New Ground in Sustainable Business Courses

Last spring, Columbia Business School students worked with an extra-curricular organization, Managers in International Development Initiative (MIDI), to set up projects with two of SEP's environmental entrepreneurs in Latin America. The mission of MIDI, founded in fall 2001, is to foster dialogue within the Columbia Business School community on international development, emerging economies, and corporate promotion of economic, social, and environmental development. Students participating in the projects through the MIDI program delivered quality work, but noted that they did not have sufficient time to devote to the projects because of their coursework and job searches.

In response, Columbia offered a new elective this semester that institutionalizes what MIDI could only offer extracurricularly. Like the MIDI program, the class is designed to match student teams with social and environmental entrepreneurs, and the class culminates with teams delivering business assistance to “their” entrepreneurs. By creating a course devoted to environmental and social enterprises, students will have greater opportunities to study these issues in depth and make a greater contribution to each client organization. Students who do not enroll in the course have the option to continue to work with projects through MIDI.

WRI’s Environmental Enterprise Corps applauds Columbia University for its innovative approach to institutionalizing the MBA student experience of working with and supporting sustainable enterprises. For ideas on how you can establish such a program at your school, please contact Amy Sprague.

EEC/ MIDI Projects at Columbia
Through WRI’s Environmental Enterprise Corps and the MIDI program, the Columbia students worked with Noram, a Mexican enterprise producing hardwood barbecue briquettes from certified sustainably managed forests in partnership with local communities, and with the Solar Trade Corporation, an enterprise manufacturing solar drying systems for coffee beans in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. For Noram, the students devised an outreach and marketing strategy to tap the US markets and analyzed the proposed structure of the company's website. For the Solar Trade Corporation, the students helped the enterprise prepare for the upcoming New Ventures Investor Forum by creating a financial valuation tool that has been useful for future projections for the business plan. The company commented, "The tool created for us by the students at Columbia allows us to easily forecast various scenarios and determine the impact on our business. The tool is invaluable for gaining the perspective we need for strategic planning."

EEC project currently available (to MBAs at all schools)
In the past two years, the EEC has matched over 200 MBA students with environmental enterprises in Latin America for business assistance. The students, working in teams, have fulfilled requirements in their Marketing, Finance, Emerging Markets, or Entrepreneurship courses by working with EEC enterprises. In addition, students have earned credit for these projects through Field Study or Internship programs. EEC matches a project with the first fully qualified team to apply for a project, according to client needs. Interested teams may want to contact the EEC as soon as possible to secure a project.

Projects currently available include:

• A US-based organization has developed a prototype solar cooker for distribution in several emerging markets. This project entails developing a business plan.
  
• An organic foods company that sells rice, beans, produce, and other products directly to consumers and specialty food stores in Costa Rica. This project entails a European market study.
  
• An upscale Mexican coffee franchise that works with the indigenous communities of Chiapas and serves organically grown coffee. This project is a market study of organic coffee consumption in Mexico.
  
• A Brazilian company that manufactures and sells equipment to recycle automotive air conditioning and commercial refrigerants, which contain CFCs that damage the ozone layer. The company is seeking market studies on the refrigeration gas recycling and recovery industry in the US and Europe. This project will require two teams to cover both the US and Europe; interested students may apply for either the US or European project.

For more information on the EEC, creating an environmental practicum program, and all available projects, please visit http://www.new-ventures.org/eec.html or contact Amy Sprague at amys@wri.org or (202) 729-7669.

EnviroLink is a business education newsletter for people who are interested in training sustainability to the next generation of business leaders. This newsletter is published quarterly by WRI's Sustainable Enterprise Program BELL (Business-Environment Learning and Leadership) project. To subscribe or unsubscribe from this newsletter, please send your request to sara@wri.org.

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. The program improves people's lives and the environment by helping business leaders and new markets thrive.

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