January 2006 | Conscious Business
Trader Joe Knows Why The Caged Bird Sings
Somewhere out there, in Trader Joe’s warehouses around the country, 380,000 chickens are spreading their wings for the first time. And if you’re one of the tens of thousands of consumers who urged the grocery giant to set their caged hens free, give yourself a flap on the back. After four months of consumer pressure, led by the Humane Society’s “No Battery Eggs” campaign, Trader Joe’s finally agreed to discontinue the cruel use of “battery cages,” wire enclosures so tiny they prevent hens from spreading their wings or turning around. Trader Joe’s joins Wild Oats and Whole Foods, who consented to the Humane Society and converted their brands to cage-free earlier last year—but there are more regional grocery chains, cafeterias and catering services yet to respond to the call. Join the fight at hsus.org and let them know: last company to go cage-free is a rotten egg. —ET
Not an Oxymoron: Green MBAs Teach Corporate Sustainability
Don’t trust corporate America? Well, as they say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”—and get an MBA.
In the search to trump the fat cats at their own game and, more pertinently, to redirect corporate societies’ often misguided vision, business minded environmentalists around the country are doing just that. But unlike traditional MBAs, these students are enrolling in programs that value sustainability, social healing and ecological preservation as scrupulously as the almighty buck. Meet the new green MBA’s, Master’s degrees in business administration that focus on sustainable management. The philosophy behind these degrees is to make a dollar and a difference.
A green MBA program teaches corporate sustainability, encouraging students to look beyond the bottom-line and acknowledge corporations’ position within the larger social and environmental community. Green MBAs come in many shapes and sizes. Immersive green programs like the New College of California (greenmba.com), Presidio School of Management (presidiomba.org), and Bainbridge Graduate Institute (bgiedu.org), feature business classes that explicitly tie into the surrounding community. Other schools place courses from regular MBA programs alongside sustainable courses, like Yale’s Environmental Management program (emc.som.yale.edu), which joins the university’s School of Management with the School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences. There’s also UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School MBA with a concentration in Sustainable Enterprise, (kenan-flagler.unc.edu/KI/cse), where a variety of sustainable management courses are required in addition to staple MBA classes.
For more information on sustainable business, listen to the sustainable business forum at kqed.org/epArchive/R505260900. And to check out the rankings for a variety of green MBA programs, visit beyondgreypinstripes.org. –TT
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