Higher education has always provided a forum for leading-edge social thought, with action oftentimes being the intended result.

On the subject of global warming, no group of students has been more engaged than the folks behind It's Getting Hot In Here, a community media project that features the student and youth leaders from the movement to stop global warming and to build a more just and sustainable future. When I'm looking for inspiration for a post — particularly a rant — It's Getting Hot in Here is often my first stop.

But, these days, it's not just the young climate activists who've turned their focus to sustainability and global warming. In fact, some grad school administrators have decided that an academic focus on these issues is just what the world needs.

Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) may have been the first business school to fully embrace sustainability. With a slogan of Changing Business for Good, and a mission to prepare students from diverse backgrounds to build enterprises that are financially successful, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable, BGI was ranked #1 in Net Impact's 2006 Student Guide to Graduate Business Schools. And, recently, BGI was named one of the Top Design Schools in the World by Business Week.

In case you wonder what design has to do with sustainability, here's what BGI president Gifford Pinchot had to say:

It might seem strange to see us ranked as a ‘top design school,’ by a business magazine. But the days of thinking about design in narrow terms are over. Design-strategies emphasizing creativity and innovation are being used to solve complex business problems, create opportunities and to catalyze new products and increase productivity. Our growing concerns with sustainability are not going to be solved by Dilbert working alone in a cubicle, but by cross-functional teams who are encouraged to be inquisitive and to think up new ideas.

In another recent issue of Business Week, Thunderbird School of Global Management professor Greg Unruh was recognized for launching an initiative he calls the carbon-free degree — an initiative to make the on campus studies of all incoming classes climate neutral.

Here's more on the concept from the Thunderbird website:

While the first year’s outstanding emissions will be offset by emissions credits funded by the Lincoln Center for Ethics in International Management and the President’s Office, the ultimate goal is for each graduating class to undertake unique business projects to compensate for the emissions generated during their studies.

The Fall 2007 class will begin this process by participating in an on-campus Sustainable Innovation Challenge asking students to identify projects that shrink Thunderbird’s climate footprint in ways that pay for themselves and contribute to the educational goals of the school.

The Business Week article, titled Carbon Neutrality Makes the Grade, profiles a number of other B-school initiatives, and is well worth the read and subsequent reflection.

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

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