HARVARD Business Review recently carried an article on creating shared value by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer. "Business and society have been pitted against each other for too long," they wrote. "That is in part because economists have legitimised the idea that to provide societal benefits, companies must temper their economic success."

Fortunately, times are changing.

The hackneyed notion of corporate social responsibility is evolving into the "win-win" concept of shared value. Business leaders are starting to refocus and examine the sustainability challenges facing the modern, global world: water, energy, food, climate change, biodiversity, HIV/AIDS. By engaging with society and civic organisations, business is beginning to unlock the opportunities that lie within these challenges.

Opportunities abound to improve processes, develop new strategies, deliver shareholder value and, at the same time, solve pressing problems.

The global financial crisis is acting as a catalyst for changing the traditionally narrow view of capitalism into a broader form. Many predicted that the lean times brought on by the financial crisis would reduce the focus on sustainability and shared value, but it has forced an examination of old paradigms.

This is not an easy evolution. Business is fairly conservative and risk averse and changing mind-sets is a complex task. Often it is business schools which reflect this reality, so progressive and relevant institutions recognise that they must stay ahead of the pack. Tapping into the broader macroeconomic context, top business schools are moving to prove the case for sustainability by highlighting companies that are making more money by thinking on a broader, social level. They are producing managers and leaders with the requisite skills for long-term success.

Around the world, business schools have recognised the necessity to adapt their thinking and teaching to factor in sustainability concerns. African business schools from SA, Nigeria, Uganda, Egypt and Rwanda are starting to driving change on the continent.

At a recent African Association of Business Schools (AABS) conference, I presented the results of a survey of the uptake of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) in African business schools. The principles reflect the need to put sustainability on the agenda through research, debate, partnering with business and adapting to the changing needs of the corporate world.

The AABS survey examined responses from 31 business schools from nine African countries. It found 10 institutions have already adopted PRME and 82% agree with the values. Nearly 50% said they were already including the tenets in their curriculum and 88% said sustainability and the PRME values were relevant to Africa and other developing — or dynamic — markets.

Further, new research out of Georgetown University in the US, conducted for AABS, looked at the African MBA experience and showed the importance of business ethics and sustainability to our students. Of 176 students polled, 94% agreed that ethics were important to them...

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Donald Gibson is the director of the Transnet Programme in Sustainable Development at the Gordon Institute of Business Science.