Dennis Minott and Denise Forrest | Call for climate-responsive curriculum

In the face of intensifying climate threats, volatile energy markets, rising inequality, and the brutal legacy of unsustainable development, it is no longer acceptable for Caribbean business schools to persist with curricula largely disconnected from the region’s ecological and economic realities.

It is imperative that the business faculties — not just of institutions in Jamaica, but across CARICOM — to reimagine their role. No longer can they operate merely as factories for conventional corporate managers. Instead, they must now function as midwives of a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable regional economy.

It is high time we greened our business schools.

From Kingston to Paramaribo, Bridgetown to Belize City, Georgetown to San Juan, Caribbean countries are among the world’s most climate-vulnerable. The impacts — coastal erosion, coral bleaching, prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, water insecurity, and increasingly violent hurricanes — are not speculative.

They are here. They are now. They are costing us lives, food security, and billions in GDP annually. Add to this the fiscal chokehold of imported fossil fuels—many Caribbean countries still spend between eight per cent and 18 per cent of GDP on oil—and the urgency becomes even clearer.

If Caribbean business education fails to confront these converging threats, then we are not educating; we are miseducating. We are grooming tomorrow’s leaders in yesterday’s thinking.

BUSINESS SCHOOLS MUST CATCH UP

Across the globe, leading business schools have already begun pivoting. INSEAD, Harvard Business School, Oxford’s Saïd Business School, and others now embed sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks throughout their core curricula. There, students engage with real-world cases on circular economies, clean energy finance, carbon pricing, green innovation, and responsible supply chains.

Meanwhile, many Caribbean institutions remain stuck in 20th-century paradigms—carbon-blind, petro-fixated, nuclear-numbed, growth-drunk, and haunted by the undead ghosts of extractivist economics.

We must bridge this cognitive and curricular chasm. A student graduating with a business degree from Mount Hope, Mona, Cave Hill, Ciudad Universitaria, or Five Islands should not do so without grasping at least the fundamentals of:

– Renewable energy economics and finance

– Climate risk assessment and adaptation planning

– Sustainability reporting and ESG compliance

– Green entrepreneurship and circular business models

– Community-based enterprise and inclusive innovation

These must not be fringe electives, or token workshops, or postgraduate luxuries. They must become core, foundational components of undergraduate and graduate business education across the region.

WHY THIS MATTERS NOW

This is not about jumping on a trend. It is about survival and strategic self-respect. The Caribbean is on the frontlines of climate disruption, and our students must be equipped not just to cope, but to lead.

Our heads of government have signed bold declarations in Paris, Glasgow, Nairobi, and Bridgetown. But there’s a dangerous disconnect between those lofty diplomatic commitments and the slow, tepid integration of sustainability into our education systems. Caribbean business schools must now accept a vital new mission, to be incubators of climate-competent leadership.

The global shift toward net-zero economies is unleashing a flood of green capital—development banks, philanthropic foundations, climate funds, and impact investors are all hungry for socially just, low-carbon investment opportunities in small island developing states. The Caribbean, with its abundant sun, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydro and tidal resources, and an energetic youth population, is ideally placed to attract and multiply this capital.

But we cannot harvest opportunity without capacity. We lack the trained human capital—especially in project design, risk analysis, green finance, innovation management, and renewable energy enterprise—to seize the moment.

Our business schools are ideally positioned to fill this gap. But only if they’re willing to overhaul their vision and their syllabi.

PAN-CARIBBEAN IMPERATIVE

Let us be clear: this is not a finger pointed only at The University of the West Indies. This is a pan-Caribbean call to action. Whether in the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Cuba, Haiti, the BVI, or St. Vincent and the Grenadines, no credible business faculty can afford to ignore the defining economic, ecological, and technological transitions of our time.

There are promising sparks. The Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) has made commendable progress in sustainability integration. CERMES in Barbados continues to pioneer regional environmental training. But these efforts remain scattered and under-resourced. What is needed now is a coordinated regional movement.

The following interventions may be considered:

– Mandatory integration of sustainability and renewable energy modules across all business degrees

– Development of interdisciplinary courses co-taught by business, engineering, climate science, and public policy faculties

– Creation of micro-credential programmes in climate finance, ESG, sustainable entrepreneurship, and circular economies for working professionals

– Formal curriculum partnerships with institutions already strong in climate-smart business education

– Funding to produce local teaching materials, case studies, and to support regional faculty development

Such initiatives should be championed by CARICOM’s Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), the Caribbean Development Bank, ministries of education, national accreditation councils, and the region’s employers themselves.

STRATEGIC AND MORAL IMPERATIVE

This is not only a strategic necessity; it is a moral obligation. The Caribbean has contributed least to global climate change. Yet, we stand to suffer most. How can we look our students in the eye—particularly those from coastal communities, drought-stricken regions, or climate-ravaged islands—and offer them business education that ignores their existential future?

This is a matter of intergenerational justice. To green our economies, we must first green our syllabi.

We must not resign ourselves to being passive consumers of imported “best practices”. Let us instead emerge as exporters of tested, tropicalised business models tailored to the needs of climate-vulnerable small island economies. Our graduates should not merely compete; they should set the standards for resilient, sustainable Caribbean enterprise.

To fail in this task is to consign our region’s best minds to irrelevance. But to succeed is to plant the seeds of a thriving, green, Caribbean century.

Let us begin.

Dennis Minott, PhD, of ENERPLANVerde Siempre Group, is a physicist, green resources strategist, and founder of A-QuEST. Denise Forrest, DBA, of ENERPLANVerde Siempre Group, is a biochemist, and bioprocess engineer. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com