by Cathy Ellis

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WA – While other business schools and MBA programs around the U.S. scramble to tack a few courses about sustainability into their existing programs, Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) is pioneering a new form of business education where ethical and socially responsible frameworks for management and sustainability issues are woven into every course. Ranked # 1 in Net Impact’s Student Guide to Graduate Business Programs (Net Impact is an international organization of more than 10,000 business leaders, experts, entrepreneurs and students ) BGI is setting the standards and the pace on environmentally and socially responsible business education.

Founded in the fall of 2002 by Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot, co-founders of Pinchot & Company, and Sherman Severin,former chairman of Marylhurst University’s Graduate Department of Management, Bainbridge Graduate Institute was established with the intent of making business a force for viable social and environmental uplift and change.

“Business and MBAs have become an increasingly powerful force in our society,” says Gifford Pinchot. “The dominant leadership model of our society is being created by MBAs and people who are imitating MBAs. And it is unfortunate that in the traditional business school, as measured by the Aspen Institute, MBAs come out less committed to the environment and less committed to social issues in business than they were going in. So we are, in essence, successfully training our future leaders to be irresponsible about the major issues in our society - and that can't be a good thing.”

Gifford Pinchot

Pinchot, who has built four companies and helped launch over 700 businesses, several of which are each doing over a billion dollars in sales, decided to dedicate the remainder of his life and resources to reversing this trend. “The changes we need in our society cannot happen without the commitment of the business community,” he says. “There are millions, literally, of NGOs that are working this problem with very talented and dedicated people. And there are huge numbers of organizations that are working the government issues as best they can. It seems that no one was working the business side of it and that's an equally important side of the triangle of what will drive these changes.”

Starting with just 18 students in 2002, this year Bainbridge will graduate 34 MBAs and another hundred students will be starting the program this fall.

Bainbridge’s basic sustainability curriculum, which has been described as ‘an emergent process rather than an event’ by the Dean of the school, Jill Bamburg, is divided into four centers of excellence. The first is the MBA core curriculum which is a standard MBA core curriculum with a sustainable twist. For example the school offers Sustainable Operations rather than just straight operations, and Finance Accounting and the Triple Bottom Line rather than just finance and accounting. “Our goal within an area of the core curriculum, which is about 24 units, is to hit the high points of the MBA curriculum so our students can go to toe to toe with other MBA grads,” says Bamburg. “At the same time we’ve woven sustainability considerations on both the social and environmental side into every aspect of people's thinking in those areas.”

The core curriculum also provides classes dedicated strictly to the key aspects of sustainability. A third area of focus is social justice and business which looks specifically at the social implications of sustainability. The fourth area of focus centers around a specific sustainability topic course which changes from one year to the next, largely according to the interests of the student body. This year's topic is renewable energy.

Beyond the sustainability focus, Bainbridge’s curriculum highlights the importance of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. The philosophy is that sustainable business will be implemented two ways: via entrepreneurial activity outside the existing corporate structure, and via intrapreneurial acts within existing corporations.

The last area which distinguishes the curriculum is that it dedicates 15 credit hours to management and leadership. “That's a very high percentage for an MBA program,” admits Bamburg. “And the theory there is that, on the leadership side of the curriculum, we’re looking at helping the students do the inner work that will make them effective agents in the outside world. So it's kind of an inner focused part of the curriculum that helps students find their voice, find their leadership capacity, and develop themselves as people capable of leading and implementing change.” The management side focuses on people and teams, organizational systems, and organizational change and how you move a large organization in the direction of sustainability.

In addition to its MBA program, Bainbridge offers Certificate Programs in Sustainable Business and Entrepreneurship & Intrapreneurship to experienced business managers, with or without conventional MBAs, who desire to deepen their understanding of sustainable business practice. Just three courses over nine months, the Certificate program also offers an alternative course of study for students who, due to time, financial or eligibility constraints, cannot yet enroll in the full MBA program.

Walking the talk

Bainbridge Graduate Institute is situated on Bainbridge Island, a half-hour ferry ride across Puget Sound from downtown Seattle. Classes, which follow more of an executive MBA format, are held at Islandwood, a 255-acre ecological learning center with beautiful meeting halls, dorms and cafeteria built from sustainably harvested lumber, sporting low-flush toilets, solar panels and a grey-water recycling system.

Four days a month students arrive from all over the U.S. and Canada to participate in long-weekend intensives that immerse them in coursework and presentations from breakfast until long after dark. Change Agents in Residence, entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and sustainability activists – people who have successful business activities centered around social or environmental principles – mingle with the students throughout the weekend, sometimes late into the night in bull-sessions. The students themselves, most of which are in mid-career and average age 37, also bring a lot to the table in the way of experience, dedication, and vision.

Jill Bamburg

“The goal of Change Agents in Residence is to bring these people in to inspire our students and give them the sense that this stuff is possible out in the real-world,” says Bamburg. “And it’s really a win-win. We always get comments back from the people who have visited about how they feel so much more hopeful and energized after they've spent the weekend with our students.”

Both Pinchot and Bamburg stress the importance of integrating what Bainbridge teaches within the structure of BGI itself. The Institute and its teachers scrupulously strive to “walk the talk,” creating not just up to date, informative classes delivered in an invigorating learning environment, but community. They acknowledge that entrepreneurism – which Pinchot describes as “a rocky road filled with failures and mistakes and fooling around trying things, leading in the end to success”- is what Bainbridge is all about.

BGI is a human endeavor, and those at the Institute make no claims on knowing everything there is to know about sustainability. Rather the staff is involved in the ongoing question of what sustainability is, how to best create it via business, and then teach the process. This “we’re all in it together” investigative atmosphere contributes to the Institute’s success and invests its students with an open-minded willingness to explore possibilities while building a sense of community.

“Our students go out of their way to help each other out rather than being in competition with each other,” says Pinchot. “If someone falls behind in accounting, well the CPA's in the group will spend a weekend getting them up to speed. It's partly a personal contribution and partly a commitment to the quality of the degree we’re offering. The students are co-creating with us.”

MBA student Saul Brown, President of Saul Good Gift Co., Ethical and Organic Gifts based in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be one of the graduates this June. He says as far as learning the ins and outs of sustainability and is concerned, BGI is the place to be. “It's really a progressive place,” he says. “The Institute was designed and organized in such a way that it is constantly evolving, and constantly learning from experience. I think that Gifford's and Liz’s vision to create that type thing is really special in its own right. And the fact that we are our own school, and we’re not part of some larger academic institution gives us the freedom to be progressive and productive and to create a community that is going to have a really positive impact on society.”

For more information www.bgiedu.org or contact at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, 284 Madrona Way NE, Suite 124, Bainbridge Island WA 98110; phone: (206) 855-9559; info@bgiedu.org