Corporate Knights business magazine has released the 2024 Better World MBA ranking, their annual ranking of business schools with the most sustainability-focused MBA programs, and UBC Sauder has ranked 13th in the world, representing the school’s highest placement in the coveted ranking since 2015. UBC Sauder also ranked 4th in the world for large schools (schools which have an average of at least 80 MBA graduates over the past two years).
UBC Sauder's full-time MBA program curriculum, offered through the Robert H. Lee Graduate School, exemplifies the school’s core principle of a global reputation for excellence in innovation and social impact. The program reinforces sustainability, ethics and responsible leadership, and the faculty encourage students to incorporate these pillars as key components of the business decision-making process.
According to Corporate Knights, the UBC MBA program “is one of the best in the world at instilling holistic purpose in tomorrow’s leaders and ensuring they have the skills and values to build a more inclusive economy that benefits society and the natural world.”
“I am thrilled by the momentum we’re seeing at the school around sustainability and climate,” says Dr. Kate White, Senior Associate Dean of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Sustainability. “From introducing a climate track in our MBA program to launching the Center for Climate and Business Solutions to establishing a new tenure-track faculty position focused on Business and Climate Change, we are advancing our commitment to sustainability. The Corporate Knights ranking is a wonderful acknowledgment of our efforts in this critical area.”
Key examples of UBC Sauder’s commitment to sustainability education can be found with the school’s many climate-centric business resources and programs:
- The MBA Climate Career Track: with climate-focused courses and future-minded career-development opportunities, UBC Sauder's MBA Climate Career Track gives future leaders the tools to understand, report on, and reduce climate impacts, and drive positive change in the world.
- UBC Sauder’s Centre for Climate and Business Solutions (CCBS), a dynamic hub of research, innovation, and collaboration to catalyze a new era of climate-conscious business practices. The CCBS is where sustainable ambition meets pragmatic action, ground-breaking ideas are transformed into tangible results, global leaders unite to shape a better tomorrow, and emerging talents discover purpose in advancing solutions for a climate-positive future.
- The Centre for Climate and Business Solutions’ SME Climate Clinic, a first of its kind lab in Canada to address the intention-action gap in emission reduction. This lab emphasizes building climate knowledge, offering intensive capacity training for students, and championing greener, more inclusive growth. Bringing together students, faculty, and SMEs equips the next generation with skills and prioritizes supporting resource-strapped companies to adopt net-zero carbon targets.
- UBC Sauder’s Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) also houses CDL Climate, a not-for-profit incubator that pairs visionary founders with established business leaders. The CDL Climate Stream provides high impact contributions to climate challenges by unlocking the potential of cutting-edge research and accelerating its path to commercialization.
To determine the ranking, Corporate Knights evaluated 174 global MBAs, including all of the programs in the 2024 Financial Times top 100 Global MBA programs. The full methodology for the rankings can be viewed here.
