People, Profit, and Planet

Business schools find that it pays to offer programs in sustainable development

By KATHERINE MANGAN

M.B.A. students spend a lot of time studying how to improve a company's bottom line, but at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, they're usually measuring three of them. Nearly a third of its students focus on sustainable development, which means that their days are spent figuring out how to shore up a company's financial position, improve its environmental impact, and enhance its social standing.

For Tom Outlaw, a student in the school's Center for