The Institute for Sustainable Business Innovation (ISBI) embraces the School's fundamental pillars of excellence:

Pillar #1: Business Practice

The ISBI includes a flexible classroom for sustainability-related courses, a multi-purpose room for student-faculty project work, and display technologies to illustrate building performance. Experiential learning opportunities throughout the program encourage students to challenge assumptions and conventional thinking by:

  • Learning how to integrate sustainability in all dimensions of business from top-ranked faculty
  • Developing innovative solutions for organizations with hands-on consulting projects that integrate the triple bottom line
  • Gaining a global perspective on sustainability with international study trips
  • Advancing your career with resources that will prepare you for success. Our sustainability consulting project and practicum courses offer an unparalleled proving ground for solving complex, real-world problems related to the ethical management of financial, social, environmental and informational resources.
Pillar #2: Thought Leadership

By cultivating cross-functional faculty strengths, the ISBI will magnify our reputation for scholarship and teaching excellence in all critical areas that hundreds of business schools endorsed in signing the six Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME).

Pillar #3: Distinctive Education

The mission of the ISBI is to focus on the broader challenges that have risen to the top of C-Suite agendas, notably:

  • Quantification of social and environmental assets and risks,
  • Analysis/dissemination of data for evidence-based decision-making, and
  • Leveraging sustainability for innovation and competitive advantage.

We cultivate integrated management and cross-functional strengths focusing on materiality, applied learning and the dissemination of research.

All students in the One-Year MBA program complete three consulting engagements consisting of two projects and a practicum. Applying theory from across the curriculum, students help clients reduce costs, improve processes and enhance competitiveness. Students take on management challenges such as developing environmental profit and loss statements, calculating ecological footprints, creating revenue streams from waste, creating new product/service launch plans, analyzing global water scarcity risks, and reducing costs and footprint associated with greenhouse gases.

Dedicated spaces for learning and research in the ISBI include:
  • The Schenk Family Research Office
  • Alpha Phi Delta Sustainable Innovation Space
The ISBI finds new impacts, indoor air quality, and value in existing buildings.


Every building has the potential to change the world. Existing buildings consume approximately 40 percent of the energy and emit nearly half of the carbon dioxide in the US each year. We are finding that indoor air quality is up to four times better than outdoor air quality. In recognition of the significant contribution of buildings to climate change, the idea of building green has become increasingly popular. Few realize the value in existing buildings and how you can get to "zero energy" or low-energy consumption through deep energy retrofits.

Research by faculty, students, and alumni within our business school enable Rockwell Hall to be a living laboratory for data analytics and integrated management that includes and assesses the financial, environmental and social performance of investments to find integrated bottom line results.

For every dollar invested in a building we can now demonstrate the environmental and social benefits of the investment with no increase in costs while simultaneously reducing environmental impacts and improving indoor air quality.

Existing buildings can and should have goals of zero energy and be retrofit to reduce environmental impacts that contribute to climate change, while simultaneously reducing operational costs, improving human health and productivity for building occupants.