The University of Vermont’s Sustainable Innovation MBA educates future leaders to create and manage successful businesses, and use business as a tool for meaningful progress in addressing the world’s major sustainability challenges. The one-year program incorporates sustainability and ethics throughout the curriculum, with courses such as Innovation Strategy, From CSR to Sustainable Value, Data Analytics and Sustainable Businesses, and Financing a Sustainable Venture. While traditional MBA education simply turns out people educated in business models, approaches, and ethics that are more a part of the problem than the solution, our mission is to prepare leaders to transform today’s businesses and invent tomorrow’s ventures through a lens of sustainability. The curriculum includes the full MBA toolkit, but also shows how the application of standard business tools can damage society’s long-term interests.

The core sustainability curriculum is wrapped in a diverse, multi-faceted learning experiences including: Innovators in Residence:
Sustainable Entrepreneurs and C Suite Business Leaders; Workshops: Skills and Insights for Sustainability and Innovation; Practicums: 12-Week Engagements with Leading Sustainability-Focused Companies to Address Strategic Sustainable Business Challenges around the world; The Leadership Seminar: A Year-Long, Co-Curricular Roundtable Focusing on Personal Leadership Awareness, Understanding, and Application.

The small cohort size and the one-year format allow for each year’s programming to shift slightly to align with student interests. For example, if there is a strong interest in impact investing, the leadership team coordinates supplemental programming from practitioners and companies in that space.

The program has a strong “Changemaker Network” that includes all alumni, faculty, and students, as well as others in the global business community who are working to fundamentally change business in pursuit of a better world. We believe our students and alumni are uniquely prepared to be change agents and to lead within enterprises — or start new ones — that are solving the world’s most pressing problems.