Wharton School Introduces Executive Education Program on Business Sustainability Leadership That is First of Its Kind

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Wharton Executive Education Program Blends Leadership Training and Development Insights With Environmental Sustainability Policies and Practices

PHILADELPHIA — As more companies embark on environmental sustainability projects, demands for executives who can lead business sustainability initiatives have multiplied. Wharton Executive Education has partnered with the Wharton School’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL), along with the support of a founding grant from SAP, to create a unique program to address this need.

Business Sustainability Leadership, the first executive education program of its kind to be offered at this scale, blends Wharton’s world-renowned leadership training and development insights with industry-spanning environmental sustainability policies and practices. To be held June 12-14, 2012, at Wharton’s new West Coast campus in San Francisco, the program will be led by Wharton Professor and IGEL faculty director Eric Orts and Wharton alumnus and entrepreneur Bernard David. Wharton faculty and field experts will provide tools to enable companies to harness sustainability for competitive advantage, increased value, and internal efficiency.

“Leading sustainability efforts requires a unique blend of skills. You not only need a solid grounding in the latest research, but also a set of actionable tools that can be applied in your organization well into the future,” notes Faculty Director Eric Orts. Blending lecture presentations, group conversations, team exercises, and expert panel discussions, the program will bring together sustainability leaders from diverse industries, geographies, and cultures.

Business Sustainability Leadership can help you find greater value and competitive advantage in markets for products and services, increased market share, reduced organizational costs, stronger public reputations, and enhanced customer and employee loyalty,” says Orts. “The business opportunities in sustainability are there, and they’re substantial. To take advantage of them, though, takes leadership skills grounded in current knowledge and experience.”

About the Wharton School

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania— founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has more than 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 88,000 graduates.