On April 30th, UNC Kenan-Flagler and the Center for Sustainable Enterprise recognized the outstanding achievements of the 95 students in the MBA Class of 2013 (33% of the class) who completed the Enrichment Concentration in Sustainable Enterprise. At the concentration ceremony, Dean James Dean and MBA Net Impact President Liz Love presented the 2013 Core Faculty Champion in Sustainability Award to Chris Bingham, Associate Professor and Phillip Hettleman Fellow of Strategy and Entrepreneurship. The Core Faculty Champion in Sustainability Award was created by the MBA Net Impact chapter as a way to recognize UNC Kenan-Flagler core faculty members who are excelling at incorporating sustainability into the content and delivery of their core classes. According to Liz Love (MBA ’14), the Read More
Category Archives: Sustainability
Reflections on the Energy Club’s First West Coast Career Trek
Guest post by Audrey Boguchwal, Christine Primmer and Jennifer Williams, MBA ‘14 What do a waste-water treatment plant, a high-performance vehicle with a stark resemblance to a Lotus roadster, a solar panel financier, a Sonoma county vineyard and a group of 8 UNC Kenan-Flagler students have in common? A passion for finding new and innovative solutions to energy challenges, and a sense of adventure. Now that our first year is almost over, it’s time to reflect on some of the experiences that stand out. One of these experiences was the UNC Energy Club’s San Francisco Bay Area Career Trek. As many Kenan-Flagler students wrapped up holiday travel in early January, the UNC Energy Club embarked on our first West Read More
The Redwoods Group: Not Your Typical Insurance Company
By Jessie Robinson, BS Environmental Science ’16 Who knew that an insurance company could be financially sustainable and effect positive social change? Well that is what the Undergraduate Net Impact Career Fellows, a group of select UNC students, discovered when Kevin Trapani, CEO of The Redwoods Group, and Dan Baum, the Executive Director of The Redwoods Group Foundation, spoke on March 26 as part of the Net Impact Career Series. The Redwoods Group is a social enterprise whose mission is to love, serve, and transform, in that order. A certified B corporation that aims to satisfy stakeholders, not just shareholders, the company mainly insures YMCAs across the country as well as other nonprofit and for-benefit camps. Trapani and Baum stressed Read More
Counter Culture Coffee Shares the Business of Being Sustainable
By Doug Stiegler (Undergraduate Business ’15) On Tuesday, February 26th, Brett Smith (MBA ’94), Founder and President of Counter Culture Coffee, spoke to a group of Undergraduate Net Impact Career Fellows. He discussed his philosophy on sustainability and introduced Counter Culture Coffee’s triple bottom line business model. Not only was I excited for this installment of the Net Impact Career Fellows speaker series, but I was pumped that it was going to meet the President of my favorite coffee roaster. Counter Culture Coffee is a wholesale coffee vendor whose vision is to pursue coffee perfection by creating partnerships that ensure prosperity for all people, improving the natural environment and operating efficiently to minimize our environmental impact. Launched in 1995, Counter Read More
Focusing on Water at UNC Kenan-Flagler
As part of UNC-Chapel Hill’s two-year, pan-university theme “Water in our World,” UNC Kenan-Flagler has taken significant strides to incorporate a focus on water in its own right, integrating the theme into the education and experiences of students. The Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE), along with partners across campus, hosted “Water and Energy in the Crosshairs,” a symposium in February that featured local and global experts in an exploration of the issues found at the nexus of water and energy. It highlighted UNC-Kenan Flagler’s commitment to addressing the problems and potential solutions surrounding the world’s finite water and energy resources, says Carol Seagle, CSE director of research and a strategy and entrepreneurship professor. “Most of the events were standing room Read More
Brandon Tidwell (EMBA ’14) Moving the Needle on CSR at Darden Restaurants
By Brandon Tidwell (EMBA ’13) The following is an excerpt from a blog post by current weekend MBA student, Brandon Tidwell. To read the full post, please go to Sustainability at Darden. “When I first began my career in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in 2007, our team at FedEx continually struggled to get our citizenship message out to various stakeholders. In the years to come, FedEx introduced its first Global Citizenship Report, launched a blog for ongoing storytelling and leveraged key social media channels to connect with numerous audiences. The team began to see the citizenship story take shape and become visible, and readily available, to the public sphere. Today, most Fortune 500 companies have issued their first CSR/sustainability report, Read More
Taking the Long View – Lessons from Procter and Gamble
By Matt Crook, CSE Leadership Fellow (MBA ’14) View the video of P&G CEO Bob McDonald’s talk. As business leaders, we must consider the long-term strategy of our organizations and the impact our decisions have on other people. Having a deep knowledge of and empathy for other cultures will be critical in doing business in the future, and Procter and Gamble can serve as an example to other businesses, regardless of size or mission. On January 14, Bob McDonald, the CEO of P&G (number 26 on the Fortune 500 list) came to UNC Kenan-Flagler as a part of the Dean’s Speaker Series. His talk focused on the growth prospects of P&G and their Global Water Project in Africa and UNC’s Read More
UNC Kenan-Flagler Ranked No. 3 for CSR/Ethics by The Financial Times
UNC Kenan-Flagler was ranked No. 3 globally for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethics in the Financial Times Global MBA Rankings 2013, in which 155 business schools from 28 countries participated. The annual Financial Times ranking is based on surveys of alumni who graduated in 2009 as well as surveys of business schools and data provided by the schools. The rankings of the top 10 schools in selected categories can be found here and the top 10 schools for CSR/Ethics can be found below. For over a decade, UNC Kenan-Flagler has been a global leader in providing students with the tools and strategies to advance corporate social responsibility and ethics. MBA students can take courses in the world class Sustainable Read More