Life in 'the real world' post MBA...

Hello everybody. 


The following article was included in one of the numerous news lists that I subscribe to. It sets out the post-MBA trajectories of a number of graduates of EDF's (that's the US environmental NGO the Environmental Defense Fund, not the French power company!) Climate Corps fellowships that "embeds top MBA students in leading companies to make the business case for energy efficiency." The MBA students they place are, on the whole, following a traditional MBA program so carbon savings / energy efficiency is a sideline and not a core part of their studies.

Life in the Real World after EDF Climate Corps

10:10's climate change film - mainstream sustainability messaging at its worst?

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this film, nor what the 10:10 board who commissioned it were thinking when they came up with the idea in the first place. Actually, that's not strictly true. I think the film does little or nothing to engage people with climate change issues, and shows a fairly amazing level of naivete from an organisation that had, up to this point, been developing an interesting social marketing campaign.

If all publicity is good publicity then if nothing else the film has helped to raise the profile of 10:10. But has it/will it lead to more people becoming involved in the campaign? In fact can this sort of campaign ever be that effective? I'm not so sure they can. The mainstream approaches to tackling climate change that assume if we can only create the right message or signal then those dodgy high carbon emitting wasters will fall into line and change their lightbulbs have been shown time and again to be ineffective. And one thing I'm fairly certain of is that the message presented in the 10:10 film won't do much to change that situation!