Familiar Names & A Few Surprises Among Financial Times’ ‘Most Responsible’ B-Schools

In the United States, diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental, social and governance programs in higher education are under constant attack from conservatives at the highest levels of business and politics. Elon Musk and Bill Ackman are only the latest of a cadre of the ultra-rich who relentlessly employ their fortunes to ensure that despite their prevalence and near-universal acceptance in academia, DEI and ESG programs are lumped together inextricably and no longer safely seen as unalloyed positives — in academia or anywhere else.

U.S. business schools, from which sprung so many of these billionaire activists and their acolytes, have been a particular target of this nascent anti-DEI campaign. But the picture is quite different in Europe and the rest of the world, as reflected by The Financial Times’ annual Responsible Business Education Awards.

The UK-based magazine’s recently announced 2024 awards for teaching, research, and best overall show clearly that the invocation of ESG — and in a larger sense, the belief that business education must help achieve a greater good concomitant, or even foremost, to the pursuit of profit — still carries a weighty social and commercial imprimatur.

AALTO, IÉSEG, SAÏD, COLORADO STATE, VU AMSTERDAM NAMED BEST SCHOOLS OVERALL

Some U.S. schools do appear among the three categories, each of which are divided between five winners and a dozen “highly commended” runners-up. In the Best Overall Schools award, for schools “committed to a responsible ethos” that demonstrate “system-wide responsible business principles integrated throughout teaching, research, operations and student outcomes,” Colorado State University College of Business is one of the five winners, along with Aalto University School of Business in Finland; Iéseg School of Management in France; the University of Oxford Saïd Business School in the UK; and VU Amsterdam School of Business and Economics in the Netherlands. Two other U.S. B-schools — UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business and Georgetown McDonough School of Business — are among the 12 commended schools. (See below for all 2024 winners.)

In the teaching award, “Best responsible teaching resources: innovative materials with a financial sustainability focus,” for “best innovative recent teaching materials on sustainability or climate change adaptation with a special focus on finance,” the five top schools are the University of Cambridge Judge Business School in the UK, for its The Purpose of Finance master’s course; IE Business School in Spain, for its Eye in the Storm course; Kedge Business School in France, for Ecological Macroeconomics course/textbooks; Loyola Marymount University in the U.S., for its Business for Good undergraduate course; and Vlerick Business School in Belgium, for its European EMBA sustainable finance module.

In the research award, for “Best academic research with societal impact: publications and outreach that have influenced policy or practice” that addresses “societal challenges with associated outreach/engagement in the last three years which has delivered positive impact on policy or practice,” FT names five professors and their articles, as well as the journals they were published in. The winners (FT lists only the first author, but all of the top five papers were written by multiple authors): Daniel Garrett of the University of Pennsylvania, for “Gas, Guns, and Governments” Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Mark de Rond of Cambridge Judge, for “To Catch a Predator,” Academy of Management Journal; Rafael Sardá of SDA Bocconi in Italy, for “Business for Ocean Sustainability,” in Ambio; Sandip Sukhtankar of the University of Virginia and Oxford: Saïd, for “Policing in Patriarchy,” Science; and Malte Toetzke of the University of St. Gallen, for “Consistent and Replicable Estimation of Bilateral Climate Finance,” Nature Climate Change.

‘WE STILL HAVE A LOT TO DO’

Commenting on Oxford Saïd’s overall win, Kathy Harvey, associate dean of MBA and executive degrees, said in a news release: “We’re delighted to be recognized for our work here. We have always taken our responsibility in this space seriously, whether through turning out future leaders equipped to make the world better, tackling global challenges through impactful research or leading by example through how we run and manage our campuses.

“I’m proud to say that before business schools really started talking about sustainability and efficiency, we were already redesigning part of the curriculum to reflect our principles of fostering impact from within. Now 51% of our school’s core teaching contains Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) related content.”

At Cambridge, the award-winning Purpose of Finance course was developed and taught to Master of Finance and MBA students by Cambridge Judge Fellow David Pitt-Watson and by Dr. Ellen Quigley, co-director of Finance for Systemic Change and special adviser to the university’s CFO. The course “seeks to challenge traditional ways of looking at finance and make the link between sustainability and the world at large,” FT said in announcing the awards.

Caroline Roussel, dean of IÉSEG, and Maria Castillo, the Paris school’s social and environmental impact director, said in a statement that the school’s inclusion in both the “Best School” and “Best Responsible Teaching Resources” awards “is great recognition of the effort done by every member of IÉSEG to better integrate social and environmental impact into everything we do. Transforming IÉSEG to ensure we prepare our students to be responsible changemakers and help drive sustainable change in organizations, while ensuring that we, as an organization, contributes positively to society, is a challenging but exciting process. We are moving in the right direction, but we still have a lot to do!”

Professor Carl Rhodes, dean of UTS Business School in Sydney, Australia, the only Australian school to be listed in any category, cheered his small school’s inclusion among the commended schools in both the research and best overall categories. “To be recognized alongside the world’s leading institutions in responsible management is an honor and testament to the passion and dedication of our academics and teaching staff,” Rhodes said, “who are working to help business and organizations make better decisions to promote economic and social well-being, as well as developing tomorrow’s ethical and socially responsible leaders through our education programs.”

See The Financial Times‘ 2024 Responsible Business Education Awards here.

BEST OVERALL SCHOOL FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS EDUCATION – FINANCIAL TIMES

Institution	Country
Aalto University School of Business	Finland
Colorado State University College of Business	US
Iéseg School of Management	France
University of Oxford: Saïd	UK
VU Amsterdam School of Business and Economics	Netherlands
HIGHLY COMMENDED
University of Cambridge: Judge	UK
Cardiff Business School	UK
Centrum PUCP Graduate Business School	Peru
Egade Business School	Mexico
ESCP Business School	France/Italy/Spain/UK/Germany
Georgetown University: McDonough	US
Iese Business School	Spain
IMD — International Institute for Management Development	Switzerland
University of California at Berkeley: Haas	US

BEST TEACHING – FINANCIAL TIMES

School	Location	Initiative
University of Cambridge: Judge	UK	The Purpose of Finance Masters Course
IE Business School	Spain	Eye in the Storm
Kedge Business School	France	Ecological Macroeconomics Course/Textbooks
Loyola Marymount University	US	Business for Good Undergraduate Course
Vlerick Business School	Belgium	European EMBA Sustainable Finance Module
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Esade-URL	Spain	Transformational Leadership and Social impact Undergraduate Course
ESCP/One point	France/Italy/Spain/UK/Germany/Poland	Design Fiction for Sustainable Futures
ESMT Berlin	Germany	Sustainability Starter Kit
GRLI	International	Globally Responsible Leadership for Sustainable Transformation
Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Oxford, Imperial, Mannheim, University of Texas	US/UK/Germany	Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability Doctoral Course
Henley Business School	UK	Sixth Form Social Enterprise Course
Iéseg School of Management	France	Transition 2026 programme
Insead	France/Singapore/UAE/US	The ESG Journey of Pro-invest Group
IMD/UN Institute for Training and Research	Switzerland	COP Simulation
MIT/University of Amsterdam	US/Netherlands	Analytics for a Better World
University of Pennsylvania	US	Climate and Financial Markets Course
Western University: Ivey	Canada	Circulr: Creating Sustainable Value from an Empty Jar

BEST RESEARCH – FINANCIAL TIMES

First author	Institution	Article	Journal
Daniel Garrett	University of Pennsylvania/Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago	Gas, Guns, and Governments	Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Mark de Rond	University of Cambridge: Judge	To Catch a Predator	Academy of Management Journal
Rafael Sardá	Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes/Bocconi/McKinsey/One Ocean Foundation	Business for Ocean Sustainability	Ambio
Sandip Sukhtankar	University of Virginia/University of Oxford: Saïd	Policing in Patriarchy	Science
Malte Toetzke	ETH Zurich/University of St Gallen	Consistent and Replicable Estimation of Bilateral Climate Finance	Nature Climate Change
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Mladen Adamovic	King’s College London/Monash Business School	Is there a Glass Ceiling for Ethnic Minorities to Enter Leadership Positions?	The Leadership Quarterley
Nuno Bento	Instituto Universitário de Lisboa/EDHEC	Determinants of Internal Carbon Pricing	Energy Policy
Yann Cornill	University of British Columbia/Insead/Sorbonne/EPHE	Obesity and Responsiveness to Food Marketing	Journal of Consumer Psychology
Benn Hogan	Trinity College Dublin	Irish Business and Human Rights	Trinity Business School
Charlotte Karam	American University of Beirut	Multilevel Power Dynamics Shaping Employer Anti-Sexual Harassment Efforts in Lebanon	Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Debbie Keeling	University of Sussex /King’s College London/Lancaster University	Consumer (Dis)engagement Coping Profiles Using Online Services in Managing Health-Related Stressors	Psychology & Marketing
Todd Moss	Syracuse University/IPADE Business School	Partnerships as an Enabler of Resourcefulness in Generating Sustainable Outcomes	Journal of Business Venturing
Noel Perry	UC Berkeley	Paying for Electricity in California	Energy Institute at Haas
J.J. Prescott	University of Michigan/University of Maryland	Subjective Beliefs about Contract Enforceability	Journal of Legal Studies
Hatim Rahman	Northwestern University/Imperial College/Stanford	The Experimental Hand	Academy of Management Journal
Nazlı Sönmez	ESMT Berlin/Aravind Eye Hospital/Harvard Business School/London Business School	Evidence from the First Shared Medical Appointments (SMAs) Randomised Controlled Trial in India	PLOS Global Public Health
Anne Summers	University of Technology Sydney	The Choice: Violence or Poverty	Opus

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