The MBA Crisis: How Business Schools Are Failing the Planet

It's 2025, and I'm here to tell you something terrifying about where I live.

Winter in the little corner of Konkan region of Western Maharashtra, India, where I have lived my entire life, has vanished.

Poof, like industrial smoke! 

Gone. Like a politician's promise!

Remember those crisp mornings, the cozy sweaters? 

Yeah, me neither. 

Now remember The Paris Agreement from a decade ago? 

The historic deal where nearly every country promised to fight climate change and keep global warming well below 2°C? rise.

More like a Paris Disagreement, because the climate's laughing all the way to 300 ppm daily at my location.

And don't even get me started on the fact that we survived a pandemic, everyone knows we're hurtling towards a climate catastrophe, and yet, most MBA programs are still churning out graduates who think "sustainability" is just a fancy new font for green washing yourself to the bank!

Traditional MBAs: Great for Your Salary, Terrible for the Planet

Corporates are responsible for around 50% of climate change. 

Let that sink in like the carbon in the lungs! 50%!!!

And yet, the top business schools are still teaching the same old profit-at-all-costs playbook that got us into this mess. They are still pretending like it is 1995. 

They’re busy churning out leaders who prioritize quarterly profits over planetary survival

It's a shame, a disgrace, a downright travesty! 

They're basically training future captains of industry to steer the Titanic straight into the iceberg of environmental collapse. And yes, I know the Titanic analogy is overused, but so is the traditional MBA curriculum, so it fits.

And therefore, I dare say it—top business schools are complicit in the climate crisis.

Sustainability: An Afterthought in MBA Programs

When you Google how many MBA programs are truly committed to sustainability, you can count them on your fingers. Even among those, most see it as a trendy, profitable niche rather than a genuine commitment to saving the planet. They pass it off as an optional in their program, although I doubt facing a climate disaster is an option. 

If you see the demographics of top business schools, around 50% students are from either India or China. Most are looking to climb up the corporate ladder by showing success in the quarterly balance sheet rather than driving long-term, sustainable change that ensures businesses thrive without destroying the planet.

I wish parents in India since the past 50 years had been obsessed with the environment rather than engineering. And pushed their children to do something about it. We would have had a Vandana Shiva at every corner of the street.  And the country would have been an example that the world would have followed for hundreds of years. 

Elon Musk Was Right About MBAs

Elon Musk has criticized MBAs for their lack of real-world domain expertise and their obsession with quarterly profits.  

Just look at the movie industry.  Big studios, run by these MBA types, only greenlight movies with mega-stars or recycled storylines.  If a movie doesn't kill it in the first three days, it gets ousted from theaters.  OTT platforms refuse to touch films that flopped in cinemas.  We're lucky we even have classics like Sholay – a film that might never have been made in today's MBA-driven landscape. 

These folks are ruining industries, and they're definitely not helping the climate.

The Need for a Sustainable MBA

A sustainable MBA isn’t about sprinkling a few eco-friendly case studies into the curriculum. It’s a fundamental shift in how we view business and leadership. Western business education has long been focused on individual success—profit maximization at any cost. Eastern thought, on the other hand, historically emphasized the collective, sometimes at the cost of individual ambition. 

The truth is, we need balance. A sustainable MBA must teach leaders to prioritize both people and the planet.

The Few Schools Getting It Right

In 2023 I decided to pursue my higher education in MBA in sustainability and found three public schools imparting Sustainability based MBA. Complete list by Corporate Knights is available here.

1. University of Victoria - MBA in Sustainable Innovation

2. Colorado State University - Impact MBA

3. University of Vermont - Sustainable Innovation MBA

To critique, No.2 and No.3 have tuition fees that are astronomical, and which makes it open to only the elite. Besides there isn’t much information online as to what research they are involved in with respect to sustainability and business.

The Future of Business Education

The world doesn’t need more MBAs who see sustainability as a marketing gimmick. We need leaders who understand that long-term profitability is impossible without long-term planetary health.

Business schools have a choice—adapt or become obsolete. Because in the end, no amount of shareholder value can save us from a world that’s literally burning.

If you’re an aspiring MBA student, ask yourself: Do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?