Sustainability at MIT Sloan

Defining Sustainability

In keeping with MIT's rich tradition of approaching problems creatively, the MIT Sloan Initiative for Sustainable Business and Society was launched in February 2007 as a means to change the way businesses, NGOs and nonprofits view, use, and manage resources and their role in society.

The MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative has a unique combination of approaches that builds off of MIT's specialties. The core approach views sustainability as a function of the interdependency and complex dynamics of economic, society, and environment systems, where success overall is influenced by success across all areas and not upon a single factor. The Initiative explicitly considers effective strategies at multiple levels, from individual to organizations to communities to the world. Reflecting MIT's mission and focus, the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative explicitly focuses on links to science and technology through implementation, and leverages MIT Sloan's strengths in process improvement, organizational learning and adaptation, entrepreneurship and commercialization, the dynamics of organizational and social change, and the interactions of markets, firms & organizations. The Initiative is not simply about solving existing problems, but rather takes a unique focus on seizing existing opportunities for greater long-term economic, social, and environmental benefit.

The MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative is focused on four main objectives:

1. help transform organizations, markets, and communities for sustainability (social, economic, and environmental), which includes operating in sustainable ways and playing a positive role in environmental regeneration and support of human welfare;
2. add rigor to the field of sustainability, specifically through developing cutting-edge sustainability management tools and building deeper understanding through research of how organizations can address their operations, supply chain, core products/services, and connection to community (widely defined);
3. prepare students with skills to lead in a resource-sensitive and just world;
4. create community that includes, engages, motivates and organizes stakeholders towards integrative solutions, welcoming MIT/Sloan faculty, students, staff, alumni as well as our partners in business, government, nonprofits, and communities.