Fetner Sustainable Enterprise Fellow Pratima Bansal to Visit SU Campus March 19-21

The Sustainable Enterprise Partnership (SEP) has announces that  Pratima (Tima) Bansal, professor and director of the Centre for Building Sustainable Value in the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University, is the SEP’s 2013 Fetner Sustainable Enterprise Fellow.

As the Fetner Sustainable Enterprise Fellow, Bansal will be on the SU campus March 19-21 to work and meet with faculty, students and the business community and share her expertise at the intersection of innovation and sustainability.

On Tuesday, March 19, Bansal will discuss “The Challenges of Rigor and Relevance in Practice-Based Research: Learnings from the Network for Business Sustainability” during a luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Room 525 of the Whitman School of Management. SU and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) faculty and graduate students are invited to attend and should preregister with Susan Oot at saoot@syr.edu. Bansal is the founder and executive director of the Network for Business Sustainability (NBS), which engages more than 900 academics to promote sustainability by fostering collaboration among the academic, industry and government sectors.

On Wednesday, March 20, Bansal will speak to a morning class on managing sustainability. She will present “Sustainability Research: It’s About Time” to faculty and Ph.D. students in Room 525 of the Whitman School from 3:30-5 p.m. Bansal will explore that the “now” focus of organizations and capital markets erodes sustainability and, thus, economic growth. Bansal’s recent papers in this area are available by contacting Oot at saoot@syr.edu.

Bansal will present “Innovation and Sustainability: A Powerful Combination” on Thursday, March 21, at a breakfast from 8-9:30 a.m. in the Whitman School’s Milton Room. Sustainability-driven innovation is one opportunity that transcends challenges such as volatile and tight financial markets, natural resource limits and powerful social movements. Bansal will present key insights from the emerging research in sustainability-driven innovation, followed by questions and discussion. This presentation is directed toward the business community, but there is space available for faculty. Pre-register with Oot at saoot@syr.edu.

The Fetner Sustainable Enterprise Fellow is made possible through a gift by Hal Fetner ’83, president and CEO of Durst-Fetner Residential, and his wife, Nina. This recognition is given annually to an academic expert in sustainable enterprise whose three- to four-day residency involves direct, in-depth work with faculty and students.

“We are so pleased that Dr. Bansal is the 2013 Fetner Sustainable Enterprise Fellow,” says Fetner. “Her expertise is at the intersection of innovation and sustainability—two critical needs in today’s world. The students and faculty, as well as the business community, have much to learn from her perspective.”

Bansal leads the Cross-Enterprise Leadership Centre on Building Sustainable Value and the Network for Business Sustainability. Both of these organizations aim to strengthen the ties between research and practice. In 2008, she was awarded the Aspen’s Institute title of Faculty Pioneer for Academic Leadership, which was coined as the “Oscars of the Business School world” by the Financial Times. She also held the title of Faculty Scholar from 2008-10, awarded by Western University. In 2011, she was appointed to the Clean50 with 50 other Canadians for the significant contributions she has made to advance the cause of sustainability and clean capitalism.

Bansal has contributed substantially to sustainability research. Her interest in the impact of the sustainability paradigm on business strategy has resulted in more than 25 peer-reviewed academic publications, and two books on business and the natural environment.  She has sat on seven different editorial boards and is currently an associate editor for the Academy of Management Journal. Her research has also been cited in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, The National Post, Globe and Mail and The Independent. She has also been awarded 13 government research grants, which have yielded more than $5.5 million. Bansal has been researching social and environmental issues since she completed her doctorate in 1996 at the University of Oxford.

Prior to her academic career, Bansal worked as an economist for the Government of Canada and Province of Alberta, and in management consulting at Nicholls Applied Management.

The SEP is a collaborative initiative of the Whitman School of Management, L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems (SyracuseCoE), and provides world-class education and research on sustainable enterprise by leveraging the academic, public and private sector resources of Central New York and beyond to address this significant and growing area of concern for businesses and other organizations.

For more information on any of the events, contact Oot at saoot@syr.edu.