Greening Business Curricula and Research

Professor Stephan Vachon advises
former student Kelly M. Griffith '05
in his Supply Chain Environmental
Management course.

Interdisciplinary courses and research projects at the Clarkson University School of Business consider business theory and practices in light of environmental management and sustainability.

Educating future business leaders who will think beyond the bottom line is an important goal at the Clarkson University School of Business.

"With the planet's population expected to exceed eight billion people by 2020, it is imperative that business leaders around the world begin to adjust production processes and products to help reduce the strain on the natural environment," says Clarkson School of Business Dean Timothy Sugrue. "That's why we have enhanced our curricula by adding courses that consider business operations and marketing in light of social responsibility and corporate citizenship."

Green Supply Chain Management

Building on its nationwide reputation in supply chain management, the School of Business offers "Supply Chain Environmental Management," a course developed for both undergraduate and MBA students. The main purpose of the course is to teach future business leaders how to incorporate environmental considerations into business decision-making.

According to Stephan Vachon, assistant professor of Operations Management and the architect of the course, students are asked to integrate an environmental management perspective into several aspects of business management including corporate strategy, technological investments, and marketing planning.

"The students examine a number of international cases in different industrial settings, each with a distinctive set of circumstances," explains Vachon. "By looking at actual managerial challenges of integrating different stakeholders' interests, students are required to balance the financial, environmental and social aspects of the business operations."

This course, along with an environmental economics class developed by Professor of Economics Fredric Menz, are the building blocks of a new concentration offered within the one-year MBA degree at the School of Business. "We want to attract students with an interest in environmental issues who would like to gain valuable managerial skills," says Farzad Mahmoodi, associate dean for Graduate and Executive Programs.

Environmental Economics

As designed by Menz, the environmental economics course considers environmental problems from an economic perspective. Topics include the theoretical foundations of environmental economics, measuring the costs and benefits of environmental policies, environmental policy issues, and special topics including risk and uncertainty in environmental regulation, sustainable development, and issues in natural resource damage assessment.

The course is also offered at the undergraduate level. "Working in teams, the students write and present a solution to a real-world environmental problem with economic consequences," he says. "Recent projects have focused on issues related to snowmobiling in the Adirondacks and economic analyses of green buildings and wind farms."


Environmental Policy Research

Menz's own expertise is in the economics of international environmental policy. Much of his research over the last two decades has investigated the effectiveness of using economic incentives to regulate emissions and promote renewable energy sources. He also studies the impact of pollution control policies on U.S. and European economies.

Menz is a nonresident scholar at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, and is currently participating in three CICERO projects, all of which deal with the issue of climate change.

One project, "Re-engaging the U.S. in Climate Policy," looks at how global climate agreements might be designed to encourage greater participation from major sources of greenhouse gases.

"Given the emphatic withdrawal of the United States from the Kyoto Protocol in March 2001, this project focuses on how international agreements to deal with climate change could be adapted to encourage participation of the United States (and other non-participants including China and India) in future climate treaties," explains Menz.

Another project considers the question of what policy measures are likely to be chosen by individual countries to meet emissions reductions mandated by global agreements that address climate change.