This is an excellent article, and you bring up some good points. It is especially relevant for me for two reasons:

1. I just graduated from The Presidio School of Management, with an MBA in Sustainable Management. Presidio is one of a handful of MBA programs in the U.S. which integrates sustainability concepts into every class that it teaches.

I would have no qualms in taking an oath, such as the one that the Harvard grads have taken, but I also have the sustainability training to back it up. Without a major shift in the actual educational methods being employed, this oath is an empty shell. Even with good intentions, traditional MBA grads will easily break the oath simply by the inertia of their training, similar to the chimp on the spacecraft.

I would also argue that one good way to address this problem is to take a good, hard look at the way that corporations are treated as legal persons under U.S. law. By allowing executives to take cover under the protection of the corporate shield and at the same time not having the ability to “punish” a corporation (you can’t put a legal entity in jail), you have a recipie for disaster stronger than any oath.

2. I just wrote a review of your book, “Living Above the Store”, for the sustainability blog TriplePundit, that came out a few days ago. So, like I said, your comments are doubly relevant to me, personally.

Steve Puma