Universal Business School: India´s first green business school to inculcate ´green thinking´ in students

This B school in Mumbai is deploying a green curriculum to realize their sustainable and green ambitions to inculcate ´green thinking´ in students. They have come up with pioneering courses like Green Finance, Green Marketing, and Green Operations and Logistics.

Green is sweeping across the business landscape as more and more consumers opt for environment friendliness in goods and services. Consequently, many business schools are prioritizing ´green´ in their programming, philosophy, and facilities. Top green business schools, such as Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT, are investing in environmentally conscious buildings, systems, and offering degrees which feature specializations in sustainability.

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After all, sustainability remains a key topic in business and society, with organizations seeking ways to be socially and environmentally responsible. In times where consumers question the source of every product, it is a good idea to start preparing a workforce for a cleaner and greener planet.

The Universal Business School (UBS) calls itself India’s first ‘green business school’. To find out why, The Tech Panda spoke to Tarun Anand, Founder and Chairman of UBS, who says their inspiration came from Apple Inc.´s model.

We had to make an innovative green focused curriculum to shape the future minds of our students and inculcate green thinking

“Apple has created the world’s most valuable company because it was innovative. Steve Jobs focused on, quite simply put, ´great hardware and great software´. We adopted this model at the UBS to realize our sustainable and green ambitions,” he says.

UBS follows the 3E Model of Ethics, Environment, and Experiential learning. True to their ambitions of becoming greener, their hardware related options include a solar power project of 355 kwp implemented on campus on the rooftop and the carport. They are utilizing solar power for street lighting.

“Once we had worked on the hardware side of our green philosophy, we wanted to focus on the most important change towards the software side of green. We had to make an innovative green focused curriculum to shape the future minds of our students and inculcate green thinking. Towards this goal, we were pioneers in incorporating innovative subjects like Green Finance, Green Marketing and Green Operations and Logistics,” he adds.

UBS´Green Initiative

The UBS campus has been built on multiple levels to allow for the natural contours of the land and to prevent excessive digging and filling. They also employ rainwater harvesting by creating three dams on campus with the aim of becoming water self-sufficient.

“We ensured that we had a green and sustainable campus with climate friendly buildings, which meant investing in double wall cladding and double jointed glass to reduce heat transmission and getting the benefits of the Thermos Effect, which meant reducing excessive transmission of heat and thereby reducing the air-conditioning needs of the entire academic block significantly,” Anand explains.

We had a unique idea of making each batch plant a tree, so they are connected to their alma mater for life

In addition, they have mandated waste recycling and established a sewage treatment plant. Their kitchen waste gets cured to produce rich manure for gardening and is given to nearby villages.

To take care of landscaping, they have planted over 5,000 trees and restored the green cover in the area, which was washed away over the years. The students of UBS also practice organic farming and ensure that the manure produced by the waste is used in planting fruits and vegetables.

“We had a unique idea of making each batch plant a tree, so they are connected to their alma mater for life,” he says.

Currently, 40% of the entire campus is completely green with no construction whatsoever.

They also own an electric powered car for student transportation to ensure a zero-carbon footprint on campus. Student accommodation rooms have been fixed with energy saving devices linked to their ID cards, so that when they leave the rooms, the electricity consumption goes to zero.

“Students regularly undertake Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan by cleaning the campus, its surroundings and Karjat station,” he adds proudly.

The UBS Vision

UBS is ranked among the most innovative business schools in India by India Today. It´s considered a premier management college offering pioneering programs, entrepreneurial experiences at both undergraduate and post graduate levels.

It has tie ups with the likes of Cardiff Met. University, UK, Swiss School of Management, Italy, INSEEC Business School, France, University of Economics, Bulgaria and Lincoln University, US.

Anand relates that UBS was established as a result of several well thought reasons, the primary being brain drain.

“We saw the brightest minds leaving the country in search of high-quality foreign education and we felt why can’t we provide the same globally accredited education infused with Indian insights and give them the best of both worlds,” he says.

Our vision is to provide Indian and international organizations with high-quality talent imbued with ethics and sensitivity towards the environment, and corporate social responsibility

Secondly, he says that the best way to inculcate management education is through an experiential learning model.

“We felt that allows students to immerse themselves in the subject and develop skills that would make them succeed in industry,” he says.

Thirdly, they focussed on the teaching faculty.

“We wanted industry professionals who have had successful careers at top management levels to come and bring that magic into the classroom, which we saw was not happening as career academicians with negligible top level management experience were imparting education,” he explains.

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Finally, their dream was to be a residential campus to India’s business capital, which is close to Mumbai to attract industry talent, but far away, to ensure an international learning campus experience.

The B School has a sprawling 40-acre campus in the green Karjat valley. Campus placements are top-notch with the school being the first in Asia Pacific to have an exclusive Thomson Reuters Cross Asset Trading Room.

“Our vision is to provide Indian and international organizations with high-quality talent imbued with ethics and sensitivity towards the environment, and corporate social responsibility,” he concludes.