The Moore School is committed to preparing tomorrow’s business managers as leaders in sustainable development by achieving economic progress that is beneficial for communities and the environment. As such we examine sustainability at the intersection of public and private domains and consider a range of perspectives, including impacts of sustainability initiatives to firms, consumers, communities and economies.
Our commitment to sustainability is engrained into our way of life. The key areas of focus for the Moore School include curriculum development, student engagement, community involvement, faculty research and environmental impact. The Moore School now has a Sustainability in Business undergraduate concentration and a Sustainability in Business graduate certificate.
The business school is housed in a LEED Platinum certified building, providing an opportunity to educate students/faculty/staff about sustainable infrastructure and our daily environmental impact. Through Net Impact and experiential learning opportunities, students are encouraged to participate in sustainability-related projects that meet the needs of local business and benefit the community. Many courses within the business school are either focused entirely on sustainability or include modules that address relevant economic, social and environmental issues.
Additionally, the Moore School partnered with the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas to develop a case series discussing the sustainability journey for Wal-Mart. These cases, which are publicly available, are an example of our commitment to developing sustainability curriculum to enhance business education. Faculty research covers a wide range of sustainability and economic development topics, which have been published in top peer reviewed journals.
The Moore School also adjudicates the annual Page Prize for Sustainability Issues in Business Curricula, which encourages the integration of sustainability into business courses and programs. The detailed course outlines for each of the award recipients is housed in a searchable database as a resource for business educators interested in integrating sustainability into their courses.
In 2008, the Moore School adopted a new strategic direction, Sustainable Enterprise and Development, with the mission to promote education and research to tackle the complex issues related to corporate responsibility, viable economic development and care of resources — both human and natural.
In a sense, this initiative is not new to the Moore School; the school has long been a leader in global business education, which inherently must address the complex interplay of economic, social and political forces.
Accelerating demand for finite resources in developing countries, the necessity of sustainable economic development in poor countries, the demand for ethical behavior and transparency in corporate governance and the ambition of today’s students to do more than make money — that is, to make the world better — are all factors in the evolution of the Moore School.
Sustainable Enterprise and Development
Our focus on sustainable enterprise and development is designed to ensure that our discussions and projects look at both private and public solutions to the challenges of sustainable development. We therefore position ourselves within an emerging space of educational organizations that explicitly look at the intersection between the public and the private in achieving the twin goals of sustainable enterprise and development.