Sustainable Business Lab

S-Lab at a glance

  • Term

    Spring

  • Units

    9

  • Eligible students

    All MIT Sloan and MIT graduate students

  • Corequisites

    15.915

  • Bid/Application

    Bid

  • Host organization profile

    Premier companies and NGOs tackling systemic challenges in sustainability, and aligning with business strategy
     

  • Sample sectors

    Apparel (Nike, Patagonia), finance/ESG (Breckinridge, Fidelity), industrial (Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Toyota), NGO (EDF, Rare, WRI)
     

  • Sample projects

    Recommendations for retrofitting low-income housing, market prioritization to decarbonize U.S. cities, strategies to improve the onboarding experience for employees with disabilities

Class registration

If you are interested in S-Lab, you must bid in the fall for 15.878 Sustainable Business Lab through the MIT Sloan bidding system.


 

Projects & deliverables timeline

  • October-December

    MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative team works with host organizations to develop projects. 

  • January

    MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative holds a host problem formulations workshop.

  • February

    Students bid on host projects. 

    Student teams are matched to projects, and establish scope and schedules with hosts. Teams formalize the problem definition and research methodology in consultation with host and faculty mentor. 

  • March

    Teams conduct secondary data analysis and develop a detailed work plan for primary research. 

  • April

    Student teams execute primary research and develop recommendations. 

  • May

    Students present final deliverables to host organizations and the MIT community. 

S-Lab student voices

  • Cristina Logg, MCP '18, consultant, Sharma Strategy Group

    “My Biogen S-Lab project really helped me understand what it takes to make the business case for sustainability. My work through the Department of Urban Studies and Planning thus far has been largely theoretical or focused on communities. S-Lab has given me a way to apply my coursework outside the classroom to a private sector context.”

     

  • Lucy Wong, M.Arch '06, EMBA '17, NYC Department of Design and Construction, program director of Police Unit

    “Working on the Groupo Familia Foundation S-Lab, I learned firsthand that recycling to reduce waste is a worldwide endeavor. Visiting facilities in Medellin, Colombia, and Brooklyn, New York, my perspective on sustainability changed. Not only are recycling programs necessary for urban living, but they also enable families to prosper in an otherwise contained environment. Meeting these hardworking families inspires me to incorporate sustainability excellence into urban projects.”

  • Tiffany Ferguson, MCP '18, business engagement program manager, Boston Federal Reserve Bank

    “The Sustainability Initiative demonstrated to me that management science and business acumen could be activated towards questions that I generally assumed were the province of the social sector. It was S-Lab discussions that helped me unpack what sustainability looks like in different company contexts, and how to be an effective agent in any of those contexts.”