On a Tuesday morning in the month of July, Himanshu Rai, director of the Indian Institute of Management, ie IIM Indore, came to the campus lawn to take classes for new students. While he was teaching, the students could also hear the chirping of birds. In such a large institution, the idea of teaching children on the lawn instead of in the classroom was not without reason. Rather, there was a well thought out policy behind it. He was very easily explaining a new trend that started in management and business schools.
The director told the students that this class is not about balance sheet management or profit optimization. This class is for preparing today's managers. Today companies need such managers who keep them at the top of the scale of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG).
In fact, the market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently given a directive to the top 1,000 listed companies. In this, it asked these companies to submit the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BSR). In this, along with the accounting of the company's money, now they have to tell what is the rating of ESG in the company. That is, what is the company doing for Environment, Social and Governance.
SEBI is going to make ESG rating mandatory for listed companies from next year. As soon as this is implemented, companies will have to answer in writing what they have done for waste management, what they have done to prevent pollution, what they have done to save the environment, what they have done for the society.
Food delivery firm Zomato, for example, said it will electrify its entire delivery system by 2030. This will make it business environment friendly.
After the launch of ESG scores among companies, education has made the biggest difference. The institutes themselves are explaining this to their students from their own direct experiences of improving this score.
IIM Indore: Sustainable Development Goal ie SDG has been fixed for the students here. This means that they have to go and live in the village. The institute meets at least 10% of its energy from solar energy.
XLRI Jamshedpur: It meets about 30% of its energy from solar power and a biogas plant. It has announced to make itself carbon neutral in three to five years. The recently started BITS School of Management aims to become a "Zero Carbon Footprint Campus".
IIM Calcutta: He is teaching Internal Carbon Pricing (A Monetary Value on Greenhouse Gas Emissions) in Corporate Finance. Human resource management has to include the skills of the employees as social responsibility.
IIM Lucknow also offers an MBA degree in Sustainable Management. Amity Business School, Noida has started MBA program in Natural Resources and Sustainability. Sustainable Management is also taught at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management in Mumbai, IIFT Delhi, IIM Rohtak, IIM Kashipur, Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar.
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