Speaking about the Rady School's program, the Dean referred to UCSD's roots, which hark back to the 1950s. "The theme of environmental consciousness is the DNA of this campus and goes back 50 years. Sustainability is not an add-on but is integrated throughout our curriculum," he said.

The typical profile of students at Rady is different from those in other business schools. Nearly 48 percent of the students in their MBA program have undergraduate degrees in science and technology and many of them opt for a joint MBA-PhD degree, in partnership with Scripps. "The Scripps Institute is the seed from which this campus was created and Scripps is the largest research institute for climate change and it is here that the term biofuel was coined," said Sullivan.

The MBA curriculum includes elective courses such as the Business of Renewable Energy. "Sustainability is a defining principle for us," said Sullivan, who expects the school to be incorporated soon into the annual rankings conducted by Beyond Grey Pinstripes.

The school has a three-course Lab to Market program which all students are required to take as a core course. It begins in the classroom and moves to a project based environment. Students work in teams, with faculty, researchers and business gurus to guide them. "The course teaches students how to harness and transform science and technology based innovations into new projects and ventures that fulfill a market need and add social and economic value," said Vish Krishnan, Professor of Innovation, Technology and Operations Management at Rady.

Students from the class of 08 created a project called AlgEn for their Lab to Market program, which emerged from their interest in the growing market for biofuels and generated interest with in the investor community. "AlgEn aims to create crude bio diesel with out shorting the supply of food to supply energy and is looking at new strains of micro algae as a source," said Sullivan. The team was given access to a patented technology made available through UCSD's technology transfer office.

A Plethora of Career Choices for Future Green MBAs

As more business schools respond to this movement, beefing up their curricula and providing learning opportunities for their students, prospective MBA students will have a bigger pool of programs to choose from and apply to and more career choices as well.

But as Gerde put it, "'What job can I get in sustainability' is a false question. The opportunities are wide-ranging, from sourcing and logistics to renewable energy."

According to a report from Net Impact, the number of CSR jobs that are publicly advertised has gone up by 37 percent since 2004. This reflects a genuine need in the market for managers and senior executives knowledgeable about the environment, who can lead green initiatives and create new profit centers.

In response to this market demand as well as the student mandate to merge their interest in management with their concern for the environment, integrating sustainability concepts into the mainstream courses and adding more green electives will be a major trend focus for these and other schools.

Padma Nagappan is a freelance business writer with an interest in green technology, green business and construction.