Making magic at the interface: Teaching Business & Environment at Trinity College Dublin

3/28/2016

In 2002, I took a course as a grad student at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in their MBA program called “Business and the Environment”. For a scientist with zero business experience, it was one of those mind-altering classes that changed my perspective on life.

The inspirational nature of the course wasn’t just because the subject matter was new and felt more tangible and applicable to my daily life than the usual chemistry and biology classes I endured. More so, I was struck by the magic that took place when scientists joined forces with MBA students.

How shade-grown coffee woke me up!

One of my own group projects for the course involved a business case analysis for shade grown coffee, culminating in a presentation to the class on the potential market opportunity of shade-grown coffee that also involved a taste test of shade-grown verses intensively-grown coffee beans. Shade-grown won!

easywaytogreen.com

It’s easy for the years of university-life to blur into each other, but this was one of the projects that really stood out in my decade as a college student. For the scientist in me, it was a challenge to make an economic and business argument for growing coffee under the more environmentally-friendly conditions of a shady rainforest. For my fellow group members from the business sector, it was equally challenging to get their head around the environmental and social interactions of producing coffee.

The experience was the first time I experienced what HIV researcher Dr. Reid Rubsamen once said:

“The greatest opportunity occurs at the interface between two disciplines.”

From that moment, I shunned the traditional academic career path to “specialize” and aspired to remain at the interface between disciplines.

A set-back in my career ambitions

Moving to Ireland in 2003 soon made me aware of what a tricky career path I’d decided to carve out. My publication record covered everything from storm-water policy and livestock waste management to supply chain finance. When I was passed by for a permanent lecturing post at an Irish university, I was told they didn’t want multi-disciplinary expertise but rather someone who “had such a narrow range of expertise that they could be a global leader in that topic” (because almost no one else was studying that topic, not that I'm bitter...).

I felt sick hearing these words – Had I wasted twelve years of my life in university soaking up knowledge on everything only to find that I wasn’t specialised enough to have a career? “Jack of all trades, Master of none” was now my cross to bear as a result of my foolish desire to know something about everything.

Just a little patience...

In 2007, while working on a short post-doc in Trinity Business School, I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Economics guru, Prof. Brian Lucey. During one of our coffee breaks, I expressed my frustration with Irish academia and told him of my amazing experience in UCLA’s Business School. Many of the American universities were already offering “Green MBAs” at the time. Why hadn't Ireland caught up?

It seemed there wasn’t a business school in the country that required their students to have some understanding of environmental issues, despite the fact that our economic growth is ruthlessly bound to natural resource extraction and every business has to operate within the confines of environmental regulation.

Prof. Lucey is known publicly for his unique approach to business and economics and I’m eternally grateful to him for hearing me out. He accepted my proposal to teach Trinity’s finance M.Sc. students a course in business and the environment. So this week, after eight patient years, I get to live my dream teaching a 25-hour course in business and the natural environment thanks to Prof. Lucey’s initiative.

Dreams are scary when they become reality

The workload in designing a course from scratch is immense, and there’s always the fear that the discipline of environmental science will be so foreign to finance students that I’ll be looking down at vacant stares for the next 4 days of my life.

But the scariest things in life always teach us the most, so I’m diving in head first. I’m extremely fortunate that several of Ireland’s business and environmental leaders have agreed to join me for guest lectures so I have some great company on this adventure!

A lot of people I’ve talked to about this course are curious about how it will go. My peers have asked:

How do you teach finance students about natural environment? How will they respond?
How will they resolve traditional economics with potential impacts on the environment?
How can you explain the potential impacts of climate change to business when the science and time scales of those impacts are uncertain?
And the most frequently asked question: How will you physically endure teaching for 25 hours consolidated in 4 days?? – That’s the question I’m the least able to answer as Trinity’s course format is certainly unique in that respect!

Share my adventure!

There’s been so much interest in what I’m about to do that I thought I might as well document the experience publicly. If you’re interested in following along, check out #EcoBizTCD on Twitter or keep tuning in to CaraAugustenborg.com, where I’ll post daily updates on the subjects we’re covering, the guest speakers, and (if I can muster the energy) vlogs on how we got on at the end of each day.

I’m looking forward to a week at the interface between two disciplines. Stay tuned to find out what magic gets made!

And as always, keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara