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responsibility for dealing with the current situation – 72% agreed that they are either ‘fully responsible’ or ‘very responsible’. The governments of the world’s eight biggest economies – the G8 – meanwhile, were labelled as being ‘fully responsible’ or ‘very responsible’ by 58% of participants. The equivalent figures for businesses, Business Schools and the UN are 55%, 53%, 52%, respectively. A smaller proportion (46%) of Business School leaders polled felt that students from their Business School or the general public are ‘fully responsible’ or ‘very responsible’ for dealing with the climate change situation. How well do these different groups handle their responsibility, in the eyes of Business School leaders? Among respondents, 13% rated the efforts of scientists in doing their bit to prevent climate change as ‘excellent’, while 69% rated them as either ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’. In comparison, 62% think their own Business School is ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’, but only 3% would say current efforts in working to prevent climate change are excellent. More than half (56%) rated their students as ‘excellent’, ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’ on the issue. At the other end of the scale, a much smaller proportion (21%) of participants think governments of the world’s biggest eight economies were ‘fairly good’ or better in their current efforts to tackle climate change (21%). Business School leaders are also sceptical in their views of the business community in this regard, with just 29% rating current efforts as ‘fairly good’, ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. How business education needs to improve Nearly a quarter of participants (22%) said their Business School was ‘neither good nor poor’ in their current efforts in working to prevent climate change, while 13% scored their institution as ‘fairly poor’,
‘very poor’ or ‘terrible’ – indicating clear room for improvement in the eyes of Business School leaders. Improvement could come from further resources being earmarked for efforts in this area – 46% of those surveyed said Business Schools need significant funding to support research into the relationship between business management and climate change prevention, and a further 33% are of the opinion that academics need training in terms of how to disseminate their research findings for greater effect. Meanwhile, 30% of Business School leaders believe that there needs to be more collaboration between Schools on the topic of climate change. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t already research and collaboration taking place at Business Schools in the field of climate change. Close to half of respondents (48%) said they are sharing knowledge and research on business and climate change with the global Business School community, and nearly two fifths (39%) said they are producing research on ‘how businesses can act to mitigate their carbon footprints and reduce climate impact’. However, only 33% reported incorporating climate change as a core module within their Business Schools’ curricula. The impact of climate change and personal beliefs Business School leaders were asked if their programmes had changed over the past three
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‘33% reported incorporating climate change as a core module within their Business Schools’ curricula’
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