The 2011 UI GreenMetric Ranking of World Universities rated participating universities in 42 countries based on criteria such as energy consumption, commuting practices, waste and water management, percentage of green space on campus, and the application of eco-sustainability policies and efforts.

“York University continues to strive to be at the forefront of sustainability strategies,” said York President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Our first place ranking in Canada by the GreenMetric World University Ranking demonstrates that we are committed to enhancing our environmentally and socially responsible practices for the benefit of all members of our community.”

The University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom placed first overall in the ranking, while Northeastern University and the University of Connecticut from the United States placed second and third.

From 2006 to 2011, York University has met or bettered its sustainability targets, all while increasing enrolment and adding new buildings to both the Keele and Glendon campuses.

“This is testament to the excellent work of students, faculty and staff on sustainability issues here at York”, said Professor Ilan Kapoor, chair of the President’s Sustainability Council. “This is only the beginning, and clearly demonstrates that we are on the right track.”

York’s recent achievements in the area of sustainability include:

• The design and construction of seven campus buildings to green building standards in the last 10 years, including the Lassonde Building which was one of the first ‘green’ buildings constructed in Ontario. This, along with the Yorkwise program that has guided the retrofitting of lighting, heating, cooling and water fixtures in older buildings, has enabled the University to achieve a 20 per cent reduction in energy usage between 2007 and 2010, totaling over 60 million kilowatt hours of electricity over three years – enough energy to power both Keele and Glendon campuses for 240 days.
• A 50 per cent reduction in single occupancy vehicle use by the York community over the past 10 years. Currently, approximately two thirds of York community members commute to campus by environmentally preferable means, including walking, cycling, public transit and carpooling. York also operates a free campus shuttle service, offers a discount on public transit passes and awards incentives to carpoolers. Cyclists can make use of bike racks, indoor monitored bike parking and shower facilities.
• A 70 per cent increase in waste diversion rates between 2004 and 2010, resulting in more than 10 million kilograms of recyclable and compostable materials being diverted from landfills. Over the past year, York’s ZeroWaste program has increased food waste composting by approximately 20 per cent and significant increases were also found in the recycling of building materials and furnishings, with a 50 per cent increase in scrap wood and a 45 per cent increase in scrap metal recycling.

York University also offers a broad curriculum of sustainability programs, with over 350 undergraduate and graduate courses that focus on environment and sustainability across several Faculties including Environmental Studies, Education, Science & Engineering, the Schulich School of Business and Osgoode Hall Law School.

“Effective sustainable practices reduce University costs, and will result in the legacy of a better environment for current and future generations, so the University is committed to the principles of sustainability, both in the classroom and across all aspects of campus operations,” said Richard Francki, assistant vice-president of Campus Services & Business Operations. “We will continue to enhance our environmental management practices to ensure that York maintains its leadership in campus sustainability in Canada.”

In light of this commitment, the President’s Sustainability Council is advancing a number of new initiatives such as the Sustainability Ambassadors and Green Office programs, both of which will be launched in early 2012. These initiatives will actively engage the York community in further achieving the University’s sustainability goals through a number of activities and learning opportunities.

Content adapted from YFile

For the original article and video, please visit YFile

York University has ranked first among Canadian universities in a global campus sustainability survey and 14th in the world. This is the second year in a row that York has ranked No. 1 in Canada.

The 2011 UI GreenMetric Ranking of World Universities rated participating universities in 42 countries based on criteria such as energy consumption, commuting practices, waste and water management, percentage of green space on campus, and the application of eco-sustainability policies and efforts.

“York University continues to strive to be at the forefront of sustainability strategies,” said York President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Our first place ranking in Canada by the GreenMetric World University Ranking demonstrates that we are committed to enhancing our environmentally and socially responsible practices for the benefit of all members of our community.”

The University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom placed first overall in the ranking, while Northeastern University and the University of Connecticut from the United States placed second and third.

From 2006 to 2011, York University has met or bettered its sustainability targets, all while increasing enrolment and adding new buildings to both the Keele and Glendon campuses.

“This is testament to the excellent work of students, faculty and staff on sustainability issues here at York”, said Professor Ilan Kapoor, chair of the President’s Sustainability Council. “This is only the beginning, and clearly demonstrates that we are on the right track.”

York’s recent achievements in the area of sustainability include:

• The design and construction of seven campus buildings to green building standards in the last 10 years, including the Lassonde Building which was one of the first ‘green’ buildings constructed in Ontario. This, along with the Yorkwise program that has guided the retrofitting of lighting, heating, cooling and water fixtures in older buildings, has enabled the University to achieve a 20 per cent reduction in energy usage between 2007 and 2010, totaling over 60 million kilowatt hours of electricity over three years – enough energy to power both Keele and Glendon campuses for 240 days.
  
• A 50 per cent reduction in single occupancy vehicle use by the York community over the past 10 years. Currently, approximately two thirds of York community members commute to campus by environmentally preferable means, including walking, cycling, public transit and carpooling. York also operates a free campus shuttle service, offers a discount on public transit passes and awards incentives to carpoolers. Cyclists can make use of bike racks, indoor monitored bike parking and shower facilities.
• A 70 per cent increase in waste diversion rates between 2004 and 2010, resulting in more than 10 million kilograms of recyclable and compostable materials being diverted from landfills. Over the past year, York’s ZeroWaste program has increased food waste composting by approximately 20 per cent and significant increases were also found in the recycling of building materials and furnishings, with a 50 per cent increase in scrap wood and a 45 per cent increase in scrap metal recycling.

York University also offers a broad curriculum of sustainability programs, with over 350 undergraduate and graduate courses that focus on environment and sustainability across several Faculties including Environmental Studies, Education, Science & Engineering, the Schulich School of Business and Osgoode Hall Law School.

“Effective sustainable practices reduce University costs, and will result in the legacy of a better environment for current and future generations, so the University is committed to the principles of sustainability, both in the classroom and across all aspects of campus operations,” said Richard Francki, assistant vice-president of Campus Services & Business Operations. “We will continue to enhance our environmental management practices to ensure that York maintains its leadership in campus sustainability in Canada.”

In light of this commitment, the President’s Sustainability Council is advancing a number of new initiatives such as the Sustainability Ambassadors and Green Office programs, both of which will be launched in early 2012. These initiatives will actively engage the York community in further achieving the University’s sustainability goals through a number of activities and learning opportunities.  

For more information on sustainability initiatives at York, visit the President’s Sustainability Council website, or send an email to sustainability@yorku.ca.

Submitted by Andrew Plunkett, sustainability project coordinator, and Pavel Graymason, sustainability engagement coordinator, in the Office of the President.

Andreas Wahner, director of the Institute for Energy and Climate Research – Troposphere in Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany, will give the 21st Annual Harold I. Schiff Lecture in York’s Senate Chamber on Dec. 2.

Organized by the York University Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Faculty of Science & Engineering, Wahner’s talk, “Atmospheric Trace Gas Degradation and Secondary Pollutant Formation: New Insights from Process Studies”, starts at 2pm in the Senate Chamber, N940 Ross Building on York’s Keele campus.

Right: Andreas Wahner

Hydroxyl (OH) radicals play a central role in the chemistry of the troposphere (the lowest level of the Earth’s atmosphere). These radicals are mainly responsible for the chemical degradation of many trace gases and they initiate chemical reactions that may eventually lead to the formation of photochemicals or the depletion of tropospheric ozone.

Wahner posits that recent field measurements of the key radicals hydroxyl and water, and measurements of the turnover rates which determine the radical recycling, are significantly underestimated by current atmospheric chemistry models. At a high load of anthropogenic (human impact) and biogenic (produced by biological processes) volatile organic compounds and low nitric oxide (NO), a significant hydroxyl radical is missing.

The challenging questions Wahner will discuss in the Harold Schiff Lecture are: Which kinds of reactions cause such efficient OH cycling? What does this mean to our understanding of the trace gas degradation and photochemical ozone production, which is normally linked with radical cycling through NO reactions?

The Harold I. Schiff Lecture series was established in honour of late Professor Emeritus Harold I. Schiff, who was York’s founding dean of the Faculty of Science in 1968. Among his numerous achievements are his major contributions to the development of techniques for measuring trace constituents in the upper atmosphere and to the interpretation of the physics and chemistry of the stratosphere.

An educator and scientist in the field of chemistry, Schiff began at York in 1964 and was named a member of York’s Founders Society in honour of his contributions to the early development of the University. While at York, Schiff was chair of the Department of Chemistry and director of the Natural Science Program in 1964, dean of the Faculty of Science from 1965 to 1972, and director of the Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry from 1985 to 1989.

The annual Harold I. Schiff Lecture is organized by the Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry at York. For more information, e-mail cac@yorku.ca.

What is the connection between Canadian literature and the environment? That question is what the Faculty of Environmental Studies wants to explore through its three-day event, Green Words/Green Worlds: Environmental Literatures & Politics in Canada, encompassing a public forum, a conference and writing workshops.

Notable Canadian environmental poets Brian Bartlett, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Rita Wong are the keynote speakers for the public forum, which will take place Friday, Oct. 21, from 6 to 8pm, at the Gladstone Hotel, North Ballroom, 1415 Queen St. W., Toronto. The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited.

Right: Brian Bartlett

Each of the authors will read from their work and discuss the socio-political responsibility of writers in modern, ecologically precarious times during the public forum. Bartlett is the author of five collections of poetry, including The Watchmaker’s Table, as well as Wanting the Day: Selected Poems, which won the 2004 Atlantic Poetry Prize. Ruffo, whose work is influenced by his Ojibwe heritage, is the author of At Geronimo’s Grave and Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney. He has also penned plays, works of nonfiction and was the writer and director for the film, A Windigo Tale, which won best picture at the American Indian Film Festival last year in San Francisco.

Wong’s work looks at the relations among contemporary poetics, social justice, ecology and decolonization. She is the author of poetry collections Forage and Monkeypuzzle and co-author of Sybil Unrest.

The academic conference will be held the next day on Saturday, Oct. 22 at the Gladstone Hotel, from 9am to 7:30pm. Paid registration for the conference is required before Oct. 14. Although admission for York students is free, they still must register in advance.

Left: Rita Wong

The conference will feature scholarly discussions and include diverse panels of academics, graduate students and writers presenting their own work on topics, such as ecopoetics, environmental literatures, indigenous politics, writing and more. Molly Wallace of Queen’s University will offer the closing keynote address, “Averting Environmental Catastrophe in Time: Speculations on Temporality, Risk and Representation”.

Some of the questions the event will probe include: How do literary works – poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction – make a unique contribution to Canadians’ understanding of, and responses to, environmental issues? How does the history of Canadian literature suggest a history of environmental activism, and vice versa? Why does poetry matter for nature? And, how does fiction incite and influence actions in the more-than-human world?

Environmental literatures engage the world differently than do environmental policies and ecopoetry embodies and inspires different modes of action, says FES Professor Catriona Sandilands, Canada Research Chair in Sustainability & Culture and the event’s co-organizer with Ella Soper, FES postdoctoral Fellow.

Right: Armand Garnet Ruffo

The question then becomes, says Sandilands, what does this reflection and action add to environmental politics in Canada? How, for example, do indigenous peoples’ struggles over the materiality and meaning of land suggest different kinds of environmental stories to underpin an ecological public culture? How can a regional or national ecopolitics benefit from closer attention to diasporic literatures? How are ecological literatures and politics jointly embedded in globalizing relations of race, gender, class, colonialism, sexuality and ability?

Writing workshops will take place Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Gladstone Hotel, from 9:30 to 11:30am. It will be a day of hands-on writing activities led by Bartlett, Ruffo and Wong, as well as FES doctoral candidate Amanda Di Battista. At the workshops, participants will be encouraged to create their own pieces of poetry or prose that might contribute to a politics of voice locally, nationally and/or globally. Participation is included in advance conference registration or contact Green Worlds for alternate arrangements.

The event is sponsored by York’s Sustainable Writing Laboratory and the Faculty of Environmental Studies with the support of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

For more information, for a full schedule of events, or to register, e-mail grnwrlds@yorku.ca.

York’s Schulich School of Business has been rated one of the world’s best when it comes to equipping future business leaders with the tools needed to manage in today’s changed business environment.

It has placed second overall in a global ranking of the top 100 MBA programs that are preparing future managers for the environmental, social and ethical complexities of modern-day business.

The Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking is published every two years by the Washington, DC-based Aspen Institute. It rates the top 100 global MBA programs in the world that are providing future business leaders with a comprehensive and integrated understanding of the social and environmental issues that are reshaping the way businesses are managed – everything from increased consumer activism and greater transparency in labour and environmental practices to changes in corporate governance policies and executive compensation. A total of 149 business schools from 22 countries took part in the survey.

According to the Aspen Institute, this year’s ranking marked the first opportunity since the global economic downturn to comprehensively measure the extent to which MBA programs are altering the content of their curriculum – and the result has been a sea change in the way that business schools are focusing on social, ethical and environmental issues in the classroom.

“The global corporate landscape has changed dramatically in the last few years and a greater number of businesses are dealing more seriously with the triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic issues,” said Dezsö J. Horváth (left), dean of the Schulich School of Business. “Adopting a broad, triple bottom line approach is more than just good corporate citizenship – it’s simply good business management. The Dow Jones Sustainability Index confirms that corporations that focus on the triple bottom line also generate higher shareholder value on average over the mid-to-long term.”

Horváth said that businesses are facing increased expectations and demands on the part of governments and the public. “The narrow shareholder model of the past has been overtaken by a much broader stakeholder model – one that considers the implications of strategic decisions on everyone from consumers and employees to investors and citizens.”

He added that, “There is a growing awareness that business issues are rarely isolated from social, political and environmental considerations. The Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking measures how well business schools are preparing students for this new reality, and Schulich is proud to be rated a world leader when it comes to graduating managers who have the tools necessary to lead in the new world of business.”

Schulich placed second overall, close behind top-ranked Stanford University and ahead of Michigan, Yale, Northwestern, Cornell and University of California – Berkeley in the world’s top 10 business schools. Schulich ranked either first or second in the world in three of the four categories measured by the survey. Schulich was rated number one in the world in the categories of Faculty Research and Relevant Coursework (Stanford ranked fourth and second, respectively).

Schulich ranked second in the world in the category of business impact, which measures the total number of courses offered that focus on the role that for-profit business can play as a force for positive social and environmental change (Stanford placed first), and Schulich ranked 13th in the category of Student Exposure (Stanford ranked 24th).

For more information and a full description of the ranking, its methodology and individual MBA program ratings, visit the Beyond Grey Pinstripes website.

The Regional Municipality of York has launched the SM4RT LIVING Plan, an Integrated Waste Management Master Plan that will guide waste management in York Region for the next 25 years.

The SM4RT LIVING Plan has another vital purpose: to explore a new way of living in the future that ensures that both people and our natural habitats thrive. This plan will focus on the need for lifestyle changes around the way we buy goods and materials, how we generate and dispose of waste and will encourage us to think and act in sustainable ways. This plan will also uncover how the transition from “Where We Are” to SM4RT LIVING will provide new economic, social, and environmental possibilities and opportunities for York Region.

The development of the SM4RT LIVING Plan will run until December 2012

There are a number of ways for you to be involved in the development of this ground breaking plan, which include:

• Visiting the SM4RT LIVING website www.SM4RTLIVING.ca and providing your ideas and comments

• Visiting the SM4RT LIVING booth at the many community events, festivals, sporting events and malls where someone will always be in attendance (full listing of events is on the website)

• Attending sessions to generate ideas, set the vision, and/or develop the strategy

The success of the project depends on participation from everyone in York Region, including families, students and business owners. Be a part of the development of the SM4RT LIVING Plan; an initiative that will ensure a more sustainable future for York Region residents.

If you would like to be involved, please contact SM4RTLIVING@york.ca or 1-855-692-4066. For more information, please visit the website www.SM4RTLIVING.ca

Healthy, affordable and culturally diverse food is on the menu at the Shoreham Food Market opening Thursday, July 14 and serving the York University and Black Creek communities.

The market will operate at the Shoreham Public School, 31 Shoreham Dr. in North York, every Thursday until Oct. 28, from 3 to 7pm.

In addition to food, there will be local vendors selling everything from jewelry to clothing, as well as activities for children and health nutrition education. There are plenty of opportunities for more vendors, so anyone who is interested in selling goods at the market should contact Kidist at yorkcec@yorku.ca.

The York University-TD Community Engagement Centre is one of the organizers of the market and this is one of its many outreach initiatives.

“Accessing fresh, healthy, low-cost food can be a challenge for residents in the Jane-Finch area. This market initiative is a collaboration that brings a new asset into the neighbourhood to help address that challenge,” says Sue Levesque, executive director of the York University-TD Community Engagement Centre. “It also provides a venue for people from York and from the local area to mingle – all kinds of interesting outcomes stem from the dozens of casual conversations that start up between people shopping at the market. Come join us.”

Whenever possible, the food is brought in from local sources through FoodShare from the farmers who grow it. Each week, the proceeds from the fresh food are used to buy food for sale the following week, while local vendors keep their own proceeds.

York University students, faculty and staff, local community residents, community agencies and City of Toronto Councillor Anthony Peruzza’s office, who are involved with the Black Creek Food Justice Action Network, all have a hand in making the market a reality.

The Good Food Market was established to bring healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food within walking distance of the University and Black Creek communities.

To learn more, visit the FoodShare website.

June 15, 2011 — Many people think the next big job boom will happen in the area of sustainability. Research from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University shows a huge percentage of employers are already giving positive weight to job candidates with sustainability skills. However, the same research indicates these job applicants also need professional training in existing fields, to push them over the top in the hiring process.

“Right now, sustainability jobs in business are linked to existing organizational structures,” says W. P. Carey School of Business Professor Kevin Dooley, who authored the research. “You’re probably not going to find a sustainability department in many companies, but employees with skills and interest in sustainability will get assigned to related projects and move up the ladder. Job candidates with both sustainability skills and a solid professional background in a field like business or engineering are receiving job offers that far exceed what’s warranted in the current market, and that’s because there aren’t many of them.”

Dooley analyzed about 100 job postings related to sustainability, interviewed several corporate sustainability managers, and surveyed about 200 managers and executives from small, medium and large companies. Across the board, companies valued sustainability training. In the surveys, 65 percent of small-company respondents said they would consider a sustainability concentration when making a hiring decision, 87 percent of the large-firm respondents agreed, and a whopping 97.5 percent of the large-firm executives, in particular, said they would value the concentration.

The survey participants also said certain sustainability-related topics should be taught to all managers and executives. These areas include corporate social responsibility, sustainability strategy, measuring sustainability, sustainability-related product and process improvement, and environmental and health policy and business.

“There is an indication that companies are beginning to hire executives in sustainability-related positions, and it won’t be too long before these executives fill out their staffs with lower-level positions,” says Dooley, who is also academic director of The Sustainability Consortium, a group working to drive innovation to improve consumer-product sustainability. “Also, more ‘green’ companies and non-governmental organizations are emerging, and they need all types of professionals in management, marketing, accounting, purchasing and other fields, who also have knowledge of sustainability.”

Dooley says job applicants who receive “golden opportunities” are those with dual degrees in sustainability and another professional field, or those with an undergraduate degree in one area and a graduate degree in the other.

“Sustainability is solutions-focused,” explains Christopher Boone, associate dean for education and professor in ASU’s School of Sustainability. “Our students want to tackle real-world problems, and we want our students to demonstrate to future employers why a sustainability approach adds value to organizations. As such, students in the School of Sustainability are required to have a meaningful internship or participate in a client-driven workshop. As our alumni network grows and sustainability becomes mainstream, I see fantastic opportunities for students with a sustainability education.”

As far as garbage goes, it has been a pretty good year for York University’s ZeroWaste Program.

The numbers show that since it launched on June 8, 2010 by Campus Services & Business Operations (CSBO), ZeroWaste has diverted the equivalent weight of more than 11 subway cars of trash, or 716 metric tonnes of garbage, from area landfills.

The figure, which equates to a 23 per cent reduction in waste, shows that with the help of the University community, York is well on its way to reaching its initial ZeroWaste target of diverting 65 per cent of its total institutional waste by 2013.

“What the figures show is that the ZeroWaste message that we have to change the way we think about our garbage has been taken to heart by the community,” says York environmental studies grad and waste management supervisor Meagan Heath (MES ’10).

Specific figures for the first year of ZeroWaste show that York community members have decreased the amount of paper they put in the trash by 46 per cent, or 257 metric tonnes, and there was a 13 per cent decrease in garbage, or the equivalent of 222 metric tonnes.

“Mixed paper products sent for recycling declined because of the increased emphasis on double-sided printing and paperless practices. During the first seven months of the program, bottles and cans going into the garbage decreased by 23 per cent because people are now bringing their own mugs and water bottles to work,” says Heath.

Rather than resting on the success of ZeroWaste, CSBO waste management staff continue to develop new and inventive ways to increase what can be diverted from landfills. Over the past few months, they’ve expanded ZeroWaste to include recycling of batteries, small electronics, appliances, ink cartridges and more. Paper towel dispensers are gradually being removed from the University washrooms in high use areas and are being replaced with hand dryers, which was likely the largest contributor to the drop in paper consumption. Heath says that several studies show that “hand dryers are more energy efficient than using paper.”

There are now handy chilled water stations situated throughout the Keele campus specifically for refilling reusable personal water bottles. Add to these measures the increased signage, recycling bins and a continual encouragement through messaging and ZeroWaste is hitting home with York faculty and staff.

Heath says that students are also being encouraged to embrace ZeroWaste. “For the first time this year during residence move-out we did a formal e-waste drive,” says Heath. “We placed big bins in every residence and asked students to put any electronics or small appliances they were throwing out into the bins. We also included a bin to collect batteries.”

Students were receptive to recycling their e-waste and Heath says a lot was learned from the e-waste drive. ”We learned that students need to be able to recycle their e-waste throughout the year and when something is broken, they need to be able to recycle it right away,” she says.

You can help the program by doing the following:

• Dispose of your organics into the organic bin located in all kitchenettes.
• Do not put organics in your office waste bin (unless you like fruit flies).
• Keep in mind that your office garbage is not collected, and empty your office recycling and waste bins into centrally located tri-bins.

You can also help the University be successful by making sure that all of your waste is placed in the appropriate tri-bin section:

• newspaper and office paper (not including used paper coffee cups or plates) should go into the paper products section of the tri-bin;
• cans, bottles, juice boxes and milk cartons that have been emptied of any liquid, should go into the bottles and cans section of the tri-bin;
• plastic or metal wrappers and packaging, such as coffee cups and take-out foam clamshells, should go into the garbage section of the tri-bin;
• all organic waste, including soiled napkins and coffee grinds should go into a separate kitchenette bin or digester.

When ZeroWaste was first conceived more than a year ago, CSBO staff knew the secret to the program’s success would be in how the community viewed their own trash. By making it necessary to walk to these communal trash and recycling centres, Heath says that people are really paying attention and thinking about what they are throwing away.

While there are many successes, Heath says there is still much to be done. “York doesn’t sort its trash, so if someone throws a water bottle that can be recycled into the garbage, it goes to the landfill,” she says. “Any garbage that ends up in a recycling bin goes into the recycling stream. We are just not equipped for sorting.

“Until now, there has been a big focus on creating an awareness of recycling and how it is important to put the materials into the right bins,” says Heath. “Going forward we will be shifting our efforts towards getting everyone to reduce the amount of trash we produce.”

For more on ZeroWaste, visit the ZeroWaste website.

In the wake of disasters such as the BP oil spill, the term “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) is prevalent. But what does it mean and why is it important? And how does it relate to businesses, stakeholders and the public?

In his new book, Corporate Social Responsibility: An Ethical Approach (Broadview Press, 2011), Professor Mark Schwartz (right) clarifies the fundamentals and importance of CSR and details how a conscientious way of doing business is possible in today’s profit-driven world.

As a teacher of business ethics and corporate social responsibility at the School of Administrative Studies in York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Schwartz felt that students needed a book that examined the ethical obligations of a business and which approach is the most appropriate for a company.

“Business students – when they end up becoming managers, executives and CEOs of their company – are going to be making important decisions,” explains Schwartz. “It’s critical for them to have a theoretical position on this debate, which will help guide them to more ethical and socially responsible decisions.”

In his book, Schwartz focuses on several aspects to clarify CSR: the key moral standards that need to be applied in a business decision; the debate between narrow (or profit-based) CSR and broader (or ethics-based) CSR; an examination of the separate and intertwined economic, legal and ethical obligations of a company; and the belief that companies need to engage in providing goods and services that generate value to society in a balanced manner, while remaining accountable to stakeholders.

Looking at four classic, high-profile case studies – the Ford Pinto case, Union Carbide’s Bhopal disaster, Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol crisis and Merck’s river blindness cure – students can apply their own ethical beliefs to decide on the best outcome. “Many students may discover their theoretical position doesn’t match what they would do when faced with a real business case,” says Schwartz. “That’s the main goal of the book: to force students or managers to realize there are implications with their position on social responsibility.”

Movie villain Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” credo and the rise of Wall Street showed us the conflict between making money and being ethical; it’s a constant struggle in business. With MBA graduates entering the workforce in unprecedented numbers, how can we expect business people to choose? In his book, Schwartz proves they don’t have to.

“Business students should make money – it’s OK to make money. I think the real question is prioritization,” says Schwartz. “Are you maximizing profit at the expense of harming others? Students need to recognize that they have ethical obligations when they go out into the workplace.”

Although Schwartz recognizes that “good CSR does not always maximize the bottom line,” it’s the long-term effects on the business, its employees, customers and the environment that should be taken into consideration. “Ethics should still take priority to the bottom line when there is a conflict,” he says.

CSR can be complex, with room for potential misinterpretation. By demystifying the topic, Schwartz has provided students with information they need to grasp the concepts and understand how to implement them successfully. Armed with this knowledge, students choose their own way of achieving ethics in business.

“There is a need for a greater awareness in terms of what the ethical obligations are. It’s not simply maximizing the bottom line and abiding by the law. Ethics goes beyond the law.”