'Going Green Globally' MBA Students Present Sustainable Business Strategies

Jessica Lussier of Summit Consulting team presents recommendations to Mazzone Hospitality for reducing costs and enhancing revenues through sustainable business practices. The team took part in the Going Green Globally program for first-year MBA students.

ALBANY, N.Y. (May 12, 2016) -- Six teams of University at Albany MBA students today presented sustainability-themed recommendations to clients to "green" the management of their organizations, with strategies that included marketing initiatives, infrastructure renovations, employee engagement plans, and the implementation of new technologies.

The Going Green Globally (G3) program annually pairs teams of first-year MBA students with local clients, including businesses, non-profits, even city governments, to strategize on reducing costs and enhancing revenues through sustainable business practices. The Business School's cornerstone, hands-on, integrative program also brings university faculty and industry experts to work with the teams through their comprehensive sustainability strategies.

This year, the MBA teams presented sustainability strategies and solutions to the following local organizations:

• DeCrescente Distributing Company
• Mazzone Hospitality
• The Palace Theatre
• New York Library Association (NYLA)
• City of Albany Water District
• City of Saratoga Springs

The G3 teams' recommendations included simples fixes such as reducing costs by replacing the City of Albany's Water District trucks' flashing lights with high-efficiency LED bulbs, to the expansive proposal for a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) - NYLA partnership to fund an outreach program to train librarians to host sustainability and informational programs for their library communities. The City of Saratoga Springs' G3 team recommended upgrading from traditional street lights to LEDs, and Albany's Palace Theatre team suggested installing solar panels and upgrading bathroom fixtures to reduce the theatre's dependence on power by 30 percent, and its water consumption by 670,000 gallons per year.

G3 is a 12-day intensive integrative cornerstone experience at the end of the first year of the University at Albany' full-time MBA program. A student team, with experienced executives and university faculty coaching them, works on a sustainability-themed project for a client company. Every year since this project was developed in 2007, the School of Business has improved, expanded, and institutionalized G3 as the most prominent and distinguished feature of the MBA program.

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