The Grad Voice

The value of a business education is sometimes just the extra boost in your paycheck or the boost in your promotion potential. But getting a graduate degree and expecting to use it to get a job doing things the old way may not be a great career path any longer - what may be more valuable now is in learning business skills and applying them in creative ways to new green industries and new ways of using market mechanisms to solve real problems.

Our big fat economic mess illustrates rather starkly that, dull clichés aside, "the old ways of doing things" aren't working all that well anymore. Clearly business has to change and adapt - it always does - but in this case probably faster and more drastically than what most people are familiar with, especially in all matters green. In a world of rising CO2 emissions, changes in the international order, and a burgeoning human population, many of the old ways of doing things don't suffice. They add more to the global problem supply. Economic activity is supposed to solve problems - humans, with our clever brains and opposable thumbs, have been performing economic activities for thousands of years in order to solve problems - how to ensure stable food supplies; how to keep ourselves warm, dry, and safe; how to communicate and transport ourselves and our things over long distances, etc.

However until recently at least, a good deal of economic activity has been geared toward ends that aren't really very useful - how to prop up inflated housing prices for as long as possible and make as much money as fast as possible; how to get as many people to charge as much on credit as possible…no need to belabor the point. It's not so surprising to see that these very unsustainable kinds of activities would come to an end at some point.

Needless to say I'm a big fan of green business - I think solar is cool, energy efficiency is even cooler, and you bet I wash my clothes with Seventh Generation and brush my teeth with all-natural tea-tree oil toothpaste. However, there's more to the green business story than just buying green products and it is important to point out some of the more fundamental issues that future business decision-makers will have to negotiate. Green is not just a new type of niche product; it is a fundamentally different way of looking at how business operates (or could/should), as well as its relationship to the wider world and the needs of society.

Perhaps I am (ever so) slightly biased, but in my view the only way to steer the economy toward any kind of rational, stable path is to move in the direction of environmental sustainability as the next growth industry. Environmental concerns are (or are becoming) enormous drains on public and private resources; and certainly we can create more valuable, profitable economic activity around things with solid and tangible value like renewable energy and other clean technologies, energy conservation, recycling and reclaiming waste, etc. Maybe its no wonder that green seems to be one of the few bright(ish) spots on our rapidly darkening economic horizon.

The economy exists in order to provide for the well-being of humans, and while our current production of clothes, electronic gadgets, refrigerators, cell phones, and cars are providing for our clothing, electronic gadgetry, refrigeration, communication and transportation needs, it is at the same time eroding other necessary aspects of our well-being including clean air, clean water, and a stable climate. In this sense, the bad economy could be a great thing - the end or rapid evolution of old, outdated and ineffectual businesses and industries that will make room for a new generation of clean and green ones that have been waiting for the old ones to fall away and create some space for new growth.

Business lends itself to creativity and ingenuity in a way that other disciplines arguably often don't or can't, although business education has a lot of catching up to do and we would be smart to give ourselves an edge by learning about innovative green business insights, practices, and paradigms. A great way for business students (who are entering the business world at this particularly eventful time) to get a relatively quick yet in-depth overview is to read some of the seminal books - Natural Capitalism by Amory & Hunter Lovins, Cradle To Cradle by William McDonough, and Green To Gold by Daniel Esty & Andrew Winston to name a few. You'll learn new, interesting, and insightful ideas. And it might be more (economically) valuable than you think.

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