When Lloyd Kurtz began teaching a course on socially responsible investing five years ago for the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, he had no idea how quickly the field would expand.

But a number of things have made his curriculum increasingly rich and relevant: New academic research has linked environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors with strong investment returns. The United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment has won widespread endorsement. There has been a greater emphasis on sustainability in investing. And, of course, the global financial crisis struck.

"To teach, I have to stay up to date with this fast-moving area," says Kurtz, who is not only a lecturer at Haas but the chief investment officer at Nelson Capital Management. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based registered investment advisory, owned by Wells Fargo & Co., offers socially responsible investment strategies, among other things, for both people and institutions.

Kurtz's MBA course, now called "Social Investing: Recent Findings in Management and Finance," covers economics, finance and management but also includes stakeholder theory and ethics.

"We're taking well-understood disciplines and giving them a fresh application; that's half the battle," Kurtz says. "The research papers are where the action is." He incorporates the latest findings into his curriculum. In addition to studying how ESG factors deliver alpha, he asks students to consider what's not making sense and where business models fail or are incomplete.

"In wealth management, this is a tool kit that fits very well," says Kurtz, who hopes his students develop a sense of self-reliance and open-mindedness.

He also has them look at strategies employed by specific practitioners, and he's invited portfolio managers to class to participate in Q&A sessions. "Part of my role is to give students a sense of how theory translates into practice," he says.

Around the globe, universities have begun to infuse sustainable and responsible investing and corporate social responsibility principles and practices into their curriculums.

Since 2009, there's been a 38% increase in the number of required courses in finance departments that include social, ethical and environmental content, according to the 2011-12 Beyond Grey Pinstripes report from the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education. The survey included 149 leading MBA programs in 22 countries on six continents. Undergraduate students are also being exposed to these topics more.

Like Kurtz, most professors are aiming to give their students a different perspective and a competitive advantage by helping them see the world as many investors have already begun to.

Nearly one out of every eight dollars professionally managed in the U.S. is involved in sustainable and responsible investing, according to the US SIF Foundation's 2010 report on socially responsible investing trends in the U.S. Some type of social criteria is integrated into about 10% of global assets, says Kurtz.

John Nofsinger, a finance professor at Washington State University, doesn't know if his former students who went into financial advising apply the SRI and corporate responsibility lessons he shared in class, but he hopes they do. "A lot of people put their money where their mouth is, where their beliefs are. Having expertise in-house could be valuable," he says. But you don't necessarily need socially responsible clients. "Any knowledge about that can be implemented in any kind of portfolio," he says.

For the past five years, Nofsinger has integrated these topics into the courses he teaches at the undergraduate, MBA and doctoral levels, and he says students have become more interested since the financial crisis. He's also talked to them about the objectives of different funds and introduced them to indexes in this space.

Nofsinger expects to spread comprehensive, unbiased information to more students, professors and industry professionals through a new book he co-edited, Socially Responsible Financing and Investment, to be published this fall. It includes chapters written by a wide variety of academics, practitioners and crossovers, including Kurtz. Nofsinger hopes the discussion questions at the end of each chapter generate additional dialogue.

Nearly all of the world's 250 largest companies (95%) are reporting their corporate responsibility efforts, according to a survey conducted last year by KPMG. Yet MBA students who arrive on campus from the financial services industry often haven't been exposed to the idea of corporate social responsibility before, says Kellie McElhaney, an adjunct assistant professor at Haas and the faculty director of its Center for Responsible Business. "Those from wealth management or retail banking can come in like deer in headlights," she says.

McElhaney, who teaches strategic corporate social responsibility and advises Global 1000 companies, says her students generally go on to work in other fields. But she thinks exposure to the ideas could be helpful for those pursuing careers in the wealth space. First, students are learning about how companies can protect and create value. They're also seeing how sustainability can offer growth opportunities, which can be built into portfolios.

Sustainability is a big focus at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. Sustainable enterprise is integrated into virtually all the core MBA classes students take in their first year, including finance, where the students learn the theory and practice of responsible financial management. Sustainable enterprise is also taught in many elective courses on things like real estate and alternative investments.

Carol Seagle, an assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Kenan-Flagler and director of research for its Center for Sustainable Enterprise, believes that students who learn about sustainability in business school curriculums will boast a competitive advantage.

"It's a new lens, a new way of asking questions and coming up with ideas," she says. Students are learning about such things as supply chains, market expansion, risk assessment and management, cost reduction, revenue enhancement and brand building-all of which affect the value of what we invest in, she says.

David Wood, the director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment (IRI) at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University, sees big benefits from teaching responsible investing. "It gives students a better sense of how to take an implicit idea, see that it's an interesting topic and put some meat on the bones," he says. They may learn how to anticipate client demand and how to service that demand.

Wood, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, co-taught a new course this past semester called "New Frontiers in Philanthropy, Social Enterprise and Impact Investing." The course, which attracted dozens of students from different backgrounds, including finance and nonprofit, looks into what's behind the hype, who the players are, how money is being put to work, where demand is growing and such practicalities as valuations and corporate reporting trends.

IRI tracks courses offered in responsible and impact investing at North American universities and provides information to other academics interested in teaching these topics. "I think we'll see slow and steady [academic] engagement as long as the field continues to grow," says Wood.

Corporate responsibility and responsible investing curricula might also serve as a morale booster or career energizer. Just ask Gary Matthews, a CPA who did tax and financial planning for individuals and small businesses before enrolling in the Union Theological Seminary in the 1990s in search of something more meaningful. He earned a doctorate in social ethics and then launched an SRI-focused advisory practice.

"Classes in ethics were key; it's what brought me into doing this work in the first place," says Matthews, a New York-based investment advisory representative with the First Affirmative Financial Network LLC. He recalls the message of a management and leadership course he took that was co-taught by a Columbia University business professor. "It was not what to do or how to do it, but whether we ought to do it-and it was really an eye-opener for the Columbia students," he says.

Matthews, who taught undergraduate and graduate courses in ethics as an adjunct professor at Drew University in Madison, N.J., thinks it's important for students to learn about corporate social responsibility and sustainability as they become more integrated into mainstream business practices.

Students are also cultivating useful practitioner skills through opportunities outside the classroom. Those involved in the student-led Haas Socially Responsible Investment Fund (which has assets of approximately $1.5 million) have recently had to balance the solar industry's poor stock performance with the reality that this sector is clearly going to be part of the solution in global sustainability, says Kurtz, the fund's faculty advisor. They also have to learn to adapt to frequent organization turnover as students graduate and matriculate. "I'm really impressed with the alacrity with which they handle that challenge," he says.

Students need to remember that the possibilities are endless-and that they need to be willing to help uncover them. Says Kurtz: "We don't have the final answers; we have really provocative questions."