Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo
I am not a Tefler School of Management student. To be frank, I am not even close. My brother is taking business and he reminds me how different our programs are at every family dinner conversation. We mostly argue about globalization, my sister and brother form an alliance against me as I squirm to convince them of the detrimental environmental and social effects of its processes on developing countries. As an Environmental Studies and Geography student, I did not think we would ever be attending the same school function. And yet, the Tefler School of Management is holding its third annual Sustainable Business Conference on Friday February 11th, and I will be attending.
This conference aims to promote sustainability in business and it is targeted at business students but the speaker’s topics of interest range from sustainability in the fashion industry to crowd sourcing, making it accessible and relevant to many. Emphasizing the “triple bottom line” (environmental, economic and social sustainability), Tefler has aimed to eliminate waste at the conference by not providing bottled water, using reusable dishware and offering organic, local and fairly traded foods.
This is a great opportunity for students, as the tickets are only $10, and covers entrance for the entire 9:30am-6:00pm conference. To purchase tickets, visit http://bit.ly/SBCtickets or buy them in person at the Tefler Student Council office (Desmarais 2105C). As a student that has participated in previous sustainability workshops, I am interested to attend a workshop that views sustainability from a business perspective rather than the traditional environmental/social perspective because the “economic” portion of triple bottom line has never been emphasized in my program’s courses. I mean, I could have taken economics of globalization but the other option was “arts chemistry”… and if you have taken arts chemistry you know why I decided on it instead.
Overall, I am excited to learn some business that I can hopefully use to win a dinner table family argument, and maybe if my brother attends with me, he will finally take my side and not my sister’s.
-merissa