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Rural cities in China and India, along with other 'base of the pyramid' communities, will be the epicenter of the next revolution in sustainability. in their pockets. They haven't been affected by the subprime crisis because they're fairly decoupled from the world econ- omy. Rural Indians aren't particularly interested in moving to the cities right now, because the jobs are no longer there. Again, in India, "rural" is a relative term. Most of the rural towns are small cities with tens of thousands of people. Right now, one question interests me: How do we invest in and build clean infrastructure that makes for dynamic, attrac- tive living in these rural settlements? In these small cities, we've got a chance to get it right the first time. Think of the opportunity to incubate tomorrow's leapfrog green-tech sus- tainable way of living! To launch entirely new industries while potentially building enormous wealth in these communities! I believe these rural cities in China and India, along with other "base of the pyramid" communities around the world, will be the epicenter of the next revolution in sustainability. Green Convergence Recently, the sustainability movement has been hampered by the fact that it contains what are essentially two separate movements. One revolves around green technology; one revolves around serving the population at the base of the pyra- mid. Both are exciting, but the problem is that they're tribal. They don't talk to each other. The green techies say, "Just give us the venture capital, and we'll invent the clean tech of tomorrow," as if it will then spring magically into commercial- ization. And of course that's not the way it works. The people in the base of the pyramid tribe want to address poverty and inequity in developing countries. They say, "How do we innovate business models, extend distri- bution, and become embedded in the community to build viable businesses from the ground up?" But this tribe doesn't think much about the environment, as if all this new eco- nomic activity will create a sustainable form of development at the base of the pyramid. And we know that way of think- ing could take us all over the cliff. I want to figure out how to bring these worlds together. How do we create clean technology at the base of the pyramid in what I call the Great Convergence? That's the basis of the three-year Green Leap initiative that I launched with the Uni- versity of Michigan's William Davidson Institute along with Cornell University's Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise and Michigan's Erb Institute. During the first year, from 2008 to 2009, we've been in China, building relationships and part- nerships with universities and corporations, and we have more plans under way for the next two years. Green business at the base of the pyramid was also the focus of the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Enterprise held in June 2009 in New York City. We identified and recruited the 100 people—intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, change agents, financiers—on the leading edge of the Great Convergence. Delegates participated in facilitated working sessions designed to build the social network and determine how to accelerate the rate at which these kinds of ventures are occurring. The forum concluded with a public roundtable discus- sion that featured Al Gore; H. Fisk Johnson, CEO of S.C. Johnson & Son; and Ratan N. Tata of the Tata Group. It was moderated by journalist Charlie Rose. (Details and highlights of the conference were posted on www.cornellglobalforum. org.) When we can bring so many champions of sustainability together in one venue, I believe we have a much better chance of solving our most intractable problems. The Problem with Business Schools Cornell and Michigan aren't the only schools that want to make a real impact on sustainable business. Other leading schools with exciting programs include Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Duke, and North Carolina-Chapel Hill. However, some of those programs are just getting started or are focused more on corporate social responsibility, stakehold- er engagement, eco-efficiency, and strategic philanthropy than on sustainability. But many other business schools do not even seem to be aware that we are operating in a business world that has already changed and a stressed environmental climate that has to change. I attended the recent Dean's Conference held by AACSB International, where I spoke about integrating sustainability into the MBA curriculum. To me it seemed as though most of the deans in the room were proceeding as if we could still do business as usual. I also sat in on a special session about operating in a time of global crisis, and I heard virtually no discussion about how the global meltdown will impact business schools. I didn't hear deans ask, "Are we teaching the right courses? What's our role in society? Should we be thinking about radical sur- gery on the core curriculum?" Institutionally, I would say business education is in a heavy slumber. Until the recruit- ers demand graduates with a grounding in sustainability— and that is increasingly the case—I don't look for business schools to take a leadership stance. Part of the problem lies with the current model of business school scholarship, which is pinned on peer-reviewed journal publishing. To publish quickly enough to achieve tenure, pro- fessors either have to use pre-existing databases—secondary data—or generate data that can be easily collected, often through surveys. I believe that we have to be much more BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2009 27