Sustainable-finance MBA graduates are finding a harsh reality when they enter the job market: Even a sustainable-investing firm might not want to hire someone with a sustainable MBA.

Although every MBA program in U.S. News & World Report’s top 10 offers its students a chance to learn sustainable business, social enterprise, or socially responsible investing practices, many candidates are finding that employers prefer a more generalized MBA graduate when it comes time to hire.

"Just studying sustainable investing or sustainable finance or sustainable business is missing the mark," says Erika Karp, who oversees $100 million as chief executive officer of Cornerstone CapitalGroup, a startup that aims to bring sustainable finance to the mainstream of the capital markets. "Studying finance, investing, and business is great. But the idea of having some type of false bifurcation—a segregated sustainable MBA—concerns me."

Karp says her 20-person firm has never hired someone with a sustainable MBA.

"I worry a lot about the current perception that sustainability is a niche, nice-to-have, or even a detractor from real business, real finance, and real economics," she says. "There are large institutions that still see sustainability as a box-ticking exercise. Some see it as exclusively risk- mitigation, some as just a branding, reputation, or marketing exercise. I am concerned that the idea of having a sustainable MBA would not dispel these views."

"I’m hoping and I’m aspiring that one day we won’t talk about sustainable finance; we’ll just talk about finance," Karp adds.

Andrew King, who teaches sustainable business at Dartmouth College, says the origins of sustainable business classes can be traced to the 1990s. Since then, student demand has driven the growth in sustainable MBA courses, he says.

"Students now going into business school have been educated all the way through the education system with greater awareness of these externalities that businesses create," King says.

He says students used to be on two extremes: They either believed climate change was an issue businesses should address or they didn’t. Students no longer question whether to address the environment and social impact of businesses, King says.

"They’re much more kind of, 'We get it, now tell us how to do it,'" he says.

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