It wasn’t too long ago that B-schools saw the advent of the sustainable MBA, and many programs have recently graduated their first crops of students. With courses such as “Finance, Accounting and the Triple Bottom Line” or “Ethics and Responsibility in Business” under their belts, graduates head into the great wide open of the new economy.

The rise in popularity for sustainable MBA programs is matching an increasing demand for employees to fill specialized management positions at large corporations. Beaverton, Ore.- based sports apparel company Nike (NYSE: NKE) has a “sustainability team”; retail giant Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) employs a “brand manager of sustainable textiles”; and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HP) has a “manager of environmental policy and strategy.”

“Past students are in every area of the economy, and we are really pleased about that,” says Ron Nahser, provost at Presidio School of Management at Presidio World College in San Francisco. “The principles of management apply to any type of organization — civic, cultural, nonprofit.”

This is good news for graduates who don’t want to work for change from within. For many graduates, starting their own business is the quintessential way to put their education to the test. “Before business school, I was doing essentially the same thing I am doing now but making money for ‘the man’ while I was doing it,” says Eric Magnuson, who received his MBA from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Now, Magnuson spends his days at Web Collective Inc., a worker-owned cooperative he co-founded in Seattle that provides Web-based services.

“Business can be a tremendous force for change,” he says. “However, if the people employed by that business are not empowered to be a force for change in their own lives by having ownership and a real sense of participation and inclusion in the company, you are just perpetuating the old system.”

Among traditional business school students, 78 percent say they want corporate social responsibility integrated into the core MBA curriculum, according to a September 2006 survey conducted by Net Impact. And 79 percent claimed they would seek employment in a socially responsible company. An increasing number of traditional business schools are already integrating corporate social responsibility into their core MBA curriculums, proving the era of the specialized “sustainable MBA” could be short-lived. To maintain a competitive edge, all B-schools may soon need to prepare their graduates to launch green economy ventures like those run by the young entrepreneurs profiled here.