Griffith MBA’s sustainability credentials took centre stage last night when it took out the 2013 Green Gown Award in the Learning and Teaching category.
Dr Nick Barter, MBA Director, accepted the award with Karen Brindley, Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, in Sydney where the Green Gown Awards Australasia roll of honour was revealed by Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS).
Judges paid tribute to a Griffith MBA curriculum that ‘takes sustainability seriously’.
The theme of the 13th annual ACTS Conference was ‘Sharing learning: lessons from the Sustainability Community’.
“This is a magnificent endorsement of how the MBA has evolved at Griffith University,” Dr Nick Barter, said. “It is a fantastic tribute to be recognised by our peers as a genuine leader in this field.”
The Green Gowns award caps off a notable month for the Griffith MBA when the quality of its program was highlighted.
After ranking inside Australia’s top 10 in the 2013 Financial Review BOSS Magazine MBA survey, the Griffith MBA also retained its 5-star rating from the Graduate Management Association of Australia (GMAA).
ACTS is a non-profit member-based organisation representing higher and further education institutions within Australia and New Zealand. It aims to inspire, promote and support change towards best practice sustainability within the operations, curriculum and research of the tertiary education sector.
ACTS judges described the Griffith MBA as “an excellent initiative that has adopted a systematic approach to refresh the MBA curriculum by taking sustainability seriously, is socially responsible and has real impact, breadth and depth”.
“The initiative demonstrated impressive thinking and commitment to students with systems thinking. It is an impressive EfS learning and teaching program that has demonstrated strongly driven values.”
The Griffith MBA embodies three core values: responsible leadership, sustainable business practice and global orientation.
“These are values not traditionally linked with MBA programs, but we have revitalised our program to prepare students to become responsible leaders of financially, environmentally and socially sustainable organisations,” Dr Barter said.
“These are leaders who can bring about change that is clearly needed in the world right now to minimise problems around environmental disasters, climate change and growing social unrest.”
Griffith University has a long and proud history of promoting sustainability. Griffith Business School was the first Australian business school to commit to the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRiME).
More recently Griffith Business School launched the MBA for Life and the MBA App, initiatives designed to keep people in business tuned into the latest industry thinking and developments.