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Sponsored ByA Growth Industry
Business schools are teaching entrepreneurs how to get rich helping to save the environment.
Martha Brant and Miyoko Ohtake
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Apr 14, 2008
Ash Upadhyaya is no tree hugger. The 29-year-old from India has a master's degree in petroleum engineering, worked as a reservoir engineer at Shell Oil and drives a Porsche Boxster that gets a measly 20 miles per gallon. Yet he has spent the past two years studying environmentally sustainable business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "Am I really driven to do this by my values? The honest answer is no," says Upadhyaya, who wants to work for a private-equity fund when he graduates in June. "It just makes good business sense to be sustainable."
Environmentalists and capitalists have typically eyed each other with suspicion, even disdain. A new breed of M.B.A. student thinks it's possible to make a bunch of green by going green. For some, studying sustainable business practices just gives them a competitive edge. For others, it's a fresh way of thinking about business. These eco-M.B.A.s talk about the "triple bottom line"—people, planet, profit. Thousands are joining Net Impact, a networking group for business leaders interested in societal problems. "Business-school students today are much more interested in social and environmental issues—and in business solving those issues," explains Liz Maw, executive director of Net Impact.
Slowly, business schools are catching up. "This is all student-driven," says Stanford B-school professor Erica Plambeck. Seven years ago she offered the first environmental elective at the business school. Today Stanford ranks No. 1 on the Aspen Institute's 2007 "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" report, which rates how business schools integrate social and environmental responsibility into their curricula.
In 2001, when Aspen began ranking schools, only 34 percent of those it surveyed offered any green courses. By 2007, 63 percent did. Even the most traditional schools are weaving in the environment. Harvard Business School students study cases such as Nestlé's sustainable cocoa agriculture, and the Wharton School will host a Net Impact conference this fall.
Mainstream schools weren't changing fast enough for green-business icon Hunter Lovins. The book she coauthored in 1999, "Natural Capitalism," has become the textbook for sustainable management. In it, she argues that companies don't factor the environment into their spreadsheets. "We treat it as if it has a value of zero, and that's bad capitalism," she says. Business leaders needed to start thinking differently. So in 2003 Lovins helped found Presidio School of Management in San Francisco, where climate change permeates every part of the curriculum. Presidio is one of a handful of schools from Washington to Vermont now offering a "Green M.B.A." These being business schools, the term has actually been trademarked and is owned by the Dominican University of California.
Critics say such boutique business schools themselves are unsustainable. But Green M.B.A.s insist they learn traditional skills while fostering unconventional business values. For the final project in accounting at Presidio, students analyze both a company's finances and its CSR (corporate social responsibility). One group gave United Parcel Service credit for mapping routes so drivers can avoid gas- (and money-) wasting left turns. Green M.B.A.s take macroeconomics, but it includes the emerging field of "ecological economics." The cases they study examine companies like Clif Bar, which makes organic energy snacks.
But it's the atmosphere at Presidio that makes it so different from Harvard. During a recent class, provost Ron Nahser walked around the high-ceilinged room at historic Fort Mason prodding students toward self-examination: "What are you learning about your calling? Are you feeling the love in the marketplace? Ask yourself, 'Why am I in this?' " For Presidio student Taja di Leonardi, it was never for the money. A nature lover, she wanted to go to business school without feeling as if she was selling her soul. At Presidio, her quest to design her own green kitchen grew into a business plan for something she called Ecohome Improvement. When a storefront became available near her home in Berkeley, she says, "it was consistent with my values, there was a need and there was a location a couple blocks away." Since Ecohome Improvement opened in 2005, di Leonardi has doubled the store's square footage, increased her staff from one to 10 and seen a 200 percent increase in revenues. Soul intact, she is cashing in.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/130591© 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Writing-A growth industry
A Growth industry
Sponsored ByA Growth Industry
Business schools are teaching entrepreneurs how to get rich helping to save the environment.
Martha Brant and Miyoko Ohtake
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Apr 14, 2008
Ash Upadhyaya is no tree hugger. The 29-year-old from India has a master's degree in petroleum engineering, worked as a reservoir engineer at Shell Oil and drives a Porsche Boxster that gets a measly 20 miles per gallon. Yet he has spent the past two years studying environmentally sustainable business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "Am I really driven to do this by my values? The honest answer is no," says Upadhyaya, who wants to work for a private-equity fund when he graduates in June. "It just makes good business sense to be sustainable."
Environmentalists and capitalists have typically eyed each other with suspicion, even disdain. A new breed of M.B.A. student thinks it's possible to make a bunch of green by going green. For some, studying sustainable business practices just gives them a competitive edge. For others, it's a fresh way of thinking about business. These eco-M.B.A.s talk about the "triple bottom line"—people, planet, profit. Thousands are joining Net Impact, a networking group for business leaders interested in societal problems. "Business-school students today are much more interested in social and environmental issues—and in business solving those issues," explains Liz Maw, executive director of Net Impact.
Slowly, business schools are catching up. "This is all student-driven," says Stanford B-school professor Erica Plambeck. Seven years ago she offered the first environmental elective at the business school. Today Stanford ranks No. 1 on the Aspen Institute's 2007 "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" report, which rates how business schools integrate social and environmental responsibility into their curricula.
In 2001, when Aspen began ranking schools, only 34 percent of those it surveyed offered any green courses. By 2007, 63 percent did. Even the most traditional schools are weaving in the environment. Harvard Business School students study cases such as Nestlé's sustainable cocoa agriculture, and the Wharton School will host a Net Impact conference this fall.
Mainstream schools weren't changing fast enough for green-business icon Hunter Lovins. The book she coauthored in 1999, "Natural Capitalism," has become the textbook for sustainable management. In it, she argues that companies don't factor the environment into their spreadsheets. "We treat it as if it has a value of zero, and that's bad capitalism," she says. Business leaders needed to start thinking differently. So in 2003 Lovins helped found Presidio School of Management in San Francisco, where climate change permeates every part of the curriculum. Presidio is one of a handful of schools from Washington to Vermont now offering a "Green M.B.A." These being business schools, the term has actually been trademarked and is owned by the Dominican University of California.
Critics say such boutique business schools themselves are unsustainable. But Green M.B.A.s insist they learn traditional skills while fostering unconventional business values. For the final project in accounting at Presidio, students analyze both a company's finances and its CSR (corporate social responsibility). One group gave United Parcel Service credit for mapping routes so drivers can avoid gas- (and money-) wasting left turns. Green M.B.A.s take macroeconomics, but it includes the emerging field of "ecological economics." The cases they study examine companies like Clif Bar, which makes organic energy snacks.
But it's the atmosphere at Presidio that makes it so different from Harvard. During a recent class, provost Ron Nahser walked around the high-ceilinged room at historic Fort Mason prodding students toward self-examination: "What are you learning about your calling? Are you feeling the love in the marketplace? Ask yourself, 'Why am I in this?' " For Presidio student Taja di Leonardi, it was never for the money. A nature lover, she wanted to go to business school without feeling as if she was selling her soul. At Presidio, her quest to design her own green kitchen grew into a business plan for something she called Ecohome Improvement. When a storefront became available near her home in Berkeley, she says, "it was consistent with my values, there was a need and there was a location a couple blocks away." Since Ecohome Improvement opened in 2005, di Leonardi has doubled the store's square footage, increased her staff from one to 10 and seen a 200 percent increase in revenues. Soul intact, she is cashing in.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/130591© 2008
Writing-Waving goodbye to the bus
Waving goodbye to the bus
Sponsored ByWaving Goodbye to the Bus
As fuel prices rise, some districts are updating an old method of getting children to school.
Caitlin McDevitt
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Sep 15, 2008
Until last spring, Nia Parker and the other kids in her neighborhood who attend West Boulevard Elementary in Columbia, Mo., commuted to school on Bus 59. But as fuel costs have risen, the Columbia school district has needed to find a way to cut its transportation costs. So the school's busing company redrew its route map, eliminating Nia's bus altogether. Instead, Nia and her neighbors travel the half mile to school via a "walking school bus"—a group of kids, supervised by an adult or two, who make the trek together. "It's healthier for them to walk," says Melissa Clark, Nia's mom, who approves of the change. Nia, a 9-year-old who's in fourth grade, sees other advantages. Since the bus used to pick up many children along a circuitous route, walking to school is actually quicker. "I like it because I get to sleep late, and I don't get as grouchy," Nia says.
Like the rest of us, school districts are feeling pinched by rising fuel costs—and finding new ways to adapt. The diesel fuel that powers school buses now costs an average of $4.28 a gallon, up 34 percent in the past two years. Cities and states spend $14.7 billion annually transporting kids to school; for the typical school district, bus bills total 5 percent of the budget. As administrators look to trim, busing is an inviting target, since it doesn't affect classroom instruction (or test scores). According to a survey done by the American Association of School Administrators in July, more than one third of school administrators have eliminated bus stops or routes in order to stay within budget. "When you have to make tough choices," says Daniel Domench, executive director of the AASA, "you cut back on what's least harmful." In the Capistrano Unified School District in California—where there is no state requirement to transport students—two thirds of the district bus routes have been eliminated. "That's 4,000 to 5,000 students that received it last year no longer getting transportation," says transportation director Mike Patton. In New Hampshire, principal Karen Cloutier says that she expects one third of her elementary-school students will walk this year—even through rain and snow. "If there is school, we will walk," she says. "And we rarely cancel school."
Many parents are delighted to see their kids walking to school, partly because many did so themselves: in 1969, according to the National Household Travel Survey, nearly half of schoolkids walked or biked to school, compared with only 16 percent in 2001. Modern parents have been leery of letting kids walk to school for fear of traffic, crime or simple bullying, but with organized adult supervision, those concerns have diminished. "Parents are buying into it more and more," says Susan Haynes, principal at Van Derveer Elementary in Somerville, N.J., which cut all its home-to-school transportation. Some kids like this change, too. "It's like recess before school," says Price Phillips, 9, who walks to school in Columbia, Mo., this year.
Schools and busing companies are finding other ways to save by cutting field trips and redrawing athletic schedules to reduce the distances of "away" sporting events. In rural areas where busing is a must, some schools—like MACCRAY High School in Clara City, Minn.—have even opted for four-day school weeks. First Student Transportation, the leading U.S. school bus provider, is training drivers to eliminate extra stops from routes, to turn off the engine while idling and to check tire pressure every time they leave the lot. First Student is also using route-optimization software to determine the most fuel-efficient routes, which aren't always the shortest ones. A few schools now use diesel-electric hybrid buses, which achieve 12 miles per gallon (compared with 7mpg for a traditional bus). But at $180,000, hybrids cost more than twice as much as a traditional diesel bus, so few schools have switched.
There could be downsides, however, to the busing cutbacks. If every formerly bused student begins hoofing it to school, it's an environmental win—but if too many of their parents decide to drive them instead, the overall carbon footprint can grow. "On average, one school bus replaces 36 private vehicles," says Mike Martin of the National Association for Pupil Transportation, a pro-busing advocacy group. Replacing buses with many more parent-driven minivans can also increase safety risks: Martin cites a 2002 report by the National Academy of Sciences that concluded students are 13 times safer on a school bus than in a passenger car, since buses have fewer accidents and withstand them better due to their size. And some students—including Murat Agca, a first grader in Columbia—complain about the long morning hikes, particularly when the route, like Agca's, contains a really big hill. Still, these children have it easier than their parents' generation—when, of course, all routes went uphill, both ways.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/157579© 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Email-Formal & Informal
Formal & Informal email
EMAIL 1 – FORMAL
With reference to your request for tigers
Dear Mr. Tiger:
Thanks you for your email received 12 February where you wanted to get one female white tigers from us. Please accept my apologies for late answer.
Regarding your request, I’ve been discussed several times until this morning. I regret to advise you that I will not be able to give you the animals which you wanted, Recently many animals at the zoo have serious health problems, therefore, any animals can not be sent to outside of the zoo until those problems are solved.
However, I will hold your request and discuss it in the near future. I would be glad if you could send me a copy of studbooks of your white tigers? I can assure you that your studbooks would be helpful for this agenda.
Once again, I wish you and your organization prosperity!
Sincerely yours,
EMAIL 2 – Informal
RE: your email requesting for laptop computer.
Thank you for your email of 12 February where you asked for borrowing my laptop computer for your English homework.
I’m sorry for the late answer. As you may know, I need a laptop computer for my presentation at School. So, I can’t make it on Friday. But, I promise, I will ask my sister to lend it to you tomorrow.
If you still need it, please could you let me know more detailed specifications on computer? And don’t forget to give me inform of time you will pick up.
Once again, sorry for about this.
See you tomorrow.
Take care
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