UCT GSB global leader in ethical business education

The University of Cape Town (UCT) Graduate School of Business (GSB) has been awarded 40th position in the 2019 Corporate Knights Better World MBA Ranking Top 40 – making it the only business school on the continent to achieve this status.

The Better World MBA Ranking identifies and ranks business schools around the world that aim to equip graduates with the skills and attitudes needed to address critical global challenges, such as climate change, sustainability and inequality.

Warwick University Business School in the United Kingdom (UK) took first place for the second consecutive year. Other business schools in the Top 10 include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management in the Unites States (US) (6th) and Griffith Business School in Australia (5th).

“As the climate emergency alarm bell sounds and social tensions threaten to unravel the compact on which capitalism depends, the Better World business schools are at the forefront of a sea change in business education focused on preparing tomorrow’s business leaders to be a force for good,” said Toby Heaps, chief executive officer of Corporate Knights, a Canadian media, research and financial information products company.

“These developments are indicative of a demand from students to train for meaningful work in the business sector.”

The research process for the rankings uncovered a noticeable uptick in published academic research related to sustainability from business schools. New academic journals devoted to sustainability and the climate crisis are also on the rise. Core and elective courses in business schools are integrating more sustainability topics into their subject material.

These developments are indicative of a demand from students to train for meaningful work in the business sector, as well as demand from employers to help solve the pressing social and environmental problems that threaten the future of businesses.

An endorsement of all that we do

The GSBʼs interim director, Associate Professor Kosheek Sewchurran, said the business school is delighted by the announcement.

“It is an endorsement of all that we do to be recognised in this way,” he said. “Our teaching, learning and research is directed towards building a more economically prosperous, more equitable and more integrated continent – and indeed world.”

As part of GSBʼs commitment towards embedding sustainability into its teaching and research, said Sewchurran, the school has in the past decade founded specialist centres like the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based Leadership, the Power Futures Lab and the GSB Solution Space, a business incubator located on both the Waterfront campus and in the community of Philippi.

He added that the UCT GSB was one of the first business schools globally to make social innovation a mandatory part of the MBA curriculum and now boasts the largest academic body of social innovation and related fields, including impact investing in Africa.