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Phillip Barnes

Students from the Moore School, School of the Environment and the College of Hotel Restaurant and Tourism Management, participated in the Moore School IMBA fall course: International Business and Sustainable Development. Through the IMBA course students had an opportunity to receive hands-on experience using a sustainable development planning tool with four companies in South Carolina.

Representatives from BMW Manufacturing, Johnson Controls, Wentworth Commercial Printers, and Holcim worked with Moore School IMBA students to implement the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) Sustainable Development Planner (SD Planner). 

Course instructor Phil Barnes, research professor in the School of the Environment, had students join a Moore School Global Sustainability Team (GST). GST members worked with an assigned company contact that provided guidance and company information.  The GST members then evaluated each company’s environmental, social and economic programs, based on the GEMI SD Planner criteria for sustainable organizations. 

The objective of the SD Planner project was to provide students with hands-on experience in sustainable development planning; introduce companies to Sustainable Development Planning tools; and build upon the sustainable enterprise program within the Moore School. Results of the sustainable development project were presented in a paper from each team, as well as and a power point presentation at the end of the semester to the company representatives. Each of the company representatives made comments as to the value of sustainable development planning and will continue the company’s sustainable development program using the SD Planner and other sustainable management tools.

(L to R) Corrina Gundel, Hernen Figueroa, Frans Oestergaard, and Alex Krawczyk.

At the conclusion of the team presentation, students and company representatives became members of the Moore School Global Sustainability Team and were recognized with a team t-shirt. 

Using a sustainable development planning tool in a joint project with companies provided the students with an opportunity to evaluate each company’s triple bottom line. An article will be submitted for publication, based on using sustainable development planning tools, which will include lessons learned from the course case studies. Barnes has also been invited to a conference in Portland, Oregon in the summer of 2008 to present the results from these case studies in business and sustainable development planning using GEMI tools.   

Phil Barnes 
March 2008