Warwick Business School tops Corporate Knights' 2018 Better World MBA Ranking

Sustainability gathering momentum at leading global business schools

TORONTO, Nov. 9, 2018 /CNW/ - Today Corporate Knights released its 16^th annual Better World MBA ranking. The UK's Warwick Business School claimed the top spot due to the meaningful integration of sustainable development into half of its core courses, extensive faculty research on sustainability themes (212 sustainability publications over the past three years, averaging over one per full-time faculty), and strong gender diversity (42.5 percent of faculty are female).  

The University of Exeter Business School, last year's top-ranked program, landed in second place this year, and the Schulich School of Business at York University, a perennial league leader on sustainability rankings, took 3^rd place globally.

"This ranking shows which business schools are stepping up to the plate to unleash the power of business as a force for good in our world," said Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights Inc. "We applaud all of this year's Top 40 Better World MBA school winners for their leadership."

To determine the 2018 Top 40 Better World MBAs, Corporate Knights assessed 141 business schools across 25 countries. The ranking universe automatically included the top 100 schools on the most recent Financial Times Global MBA Ranking. Additionally, all business schools accredited by the Association of MBAs, AACSB International and EQUIS, and all current champions in the United Nations' Principles for Responsible Management Education initiative were invited to participate.

The schools were graded on five indicators: the number of institutes and centres dedicated to sustainable development (up to a maximum of five); the percentage of core courses that integrate sustainable development; faculty research publications and citations on sustainable development themes; and faculty gender and racial diversity. Data for these indicators was collected from publicly available sources. Outreach was conducted with the schools for verification and confirmation prior to the ranking's completion.

Corporate Knights introduced two new metrics to this year's ranking: the gender and racial diversity of graduate business department faculty. Such diversity can influence student perception of what leadership looks like, and means that business schools can model meaningful standards for more diverse corporate boards and management. The University of Connecticut's School of Business and the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary's University in Halifax led the way on racial diversity with 51 percent of faculty identified as visible minorities. Overall, out of the 20,074 faculty evaluated for the ranking, 24 percent were classified as racially diverse and 28 percent were female—significantly more diverse representation than on the average large corporate board.

Six programs dropped off the Top 40 this year, while the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, University of Guelph's College of Business and Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Durham University Business School, and Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business all claimed new spots on the Top 40.

Of all of the MBA programs evaluated, 81.5 percent have at least one mandatory course that integrates relevant sustainable development themes, up from 70.9 percent last year.

Among the top 100 schools cohort of the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking, the number of sustainability-related publications increased 11.6 percent to 5,945, and the number of sustainability institutes increased by 25 percent to 345. The deepening integration of sustainable development themes at business schools is part of a long-running trend as the world's top business schools strive to address society's biggest challenges.

About Corporate Knights: Founded in 2002, Corporate Knights is a Toronto-based media and research company focused on clean capitalism—an economic system that incorporates social, economic and ecological factors. Corporate Knights is best known for its rules-based transparent rankings of corporate sustainability performance, including the Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada and the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World. Learn more at www.corporateknights.com.

2018 Corporate Knights Better World MBA Ranking (Top 40)

Rank - 2018	School	Country
1	Warwick Business School	United Kingdom
2	University of Exeter Business School	United Kingdom
3	York University - Schulich School of Business	Canada
4	Griffith Business School	Australia
5	University of Vermont - Grossman School of Business	United States
6	Georgia Institute of Technology - Scheller School of Business	United States
7	INSEAD	France
8	Saint Mary's University - Sobey School of Business	Canada
9	University of Guelph - College of Business and Economics	Canada
10	MIT Sloan School of Management	United States
11	Fordham University - Gabelli School of Business	United States
12	TIAS School for Business and Society	Netherlands
13	Duquesne University - Palumbo–Donahue School of Business	United States
14	Copenhagen Business School	Denmark
15	University of Bath - School of Management	United Kingdom
16	McGill University - Desautels Faculty of Management	Canada
17	University of Pennsylvania - Wharton School of Business	United States
18	Nottingham University Business School	United Kingdom
19	University of Victoria - Gustavson School of Business	Canada
20	Manchester University - Alliance MBS	United Kingdom
21*	Simon Fraser University - Beedie School of Business	Canada
21*	University of Edinburgh Business School	United Kingdom
23	KAIST	South Korea
24	Harvard University - Harvard Business School	United States
25	London Business School	United Kingdom
26	University of British Columbia - Sauder School of Business	Canada
27	Durham University Business School	United Kingdom
28	Stanford Graduate School of Business	United States
29	University of Strathclyde Business School	United Kingdom
30	University of Calgary - Haskayne School of Business	Canada
31	University of California at Berkeley - Haas School of Business	United States
32	Erasmus University - Rotterdam School of Management	Netherlands
33	Concordia University - John Molson School of Business	Canada
34	Duke University - Fuqua School of Business	United States
35	Maastricht University School of Business and Economics	Netherlands
36	University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management	Canada
37	Yale University - Yale School of Management	United States
38	Stockholm School of Economics	Sweden
39	Brandeis University - Brandeis International Business School	United States
40	University of Ottawa - Telfer School of Management	Canada

SOURCE Corporate Knights Inc.

Elaine Cabildo, Corporate Knights, Betterworldmba [@] corporateknights.com, 416-203-4674

Related Links

http://www.corporateknights.ca