These vast challenges highlight the urgency for ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) principles across sectors. Yet, according to the latest ESG Latin America Landscape survey by RSM International, only 46 percent of Latin American companies have a formal sustainability policy. This, the survey states, is due to KPI tracking, executive-level disengagement and limited training for workers.

To equip the next generation of leaders to address these complex issues, then, Latin American business schools must embed ESG principles into their curricula.

Building Leaders to Tackle the Region’s Challenges

“It’s about forming leaders who can critically assess the social and environmental impacts of their decisions, and design solutions that generate long-term value for people and the planet,” says Cristóbal Rodríguez, an education leader and youth advocate with over 15 years of experience designing and scaling learning programmes across Latin America.

As Regional Director for North and Latin America at beVisioneers: The Mercedes-Benz Fellowship, Rodríguez oversees initiatives that support young environmental innovators across the region.

“We need professionals who are not only aware of ESG principles,” he adds, “but who can integrate them into the core of organisations, institutions and policy frameworks across sectors.”

Business schools in the region are rethinking how they can prepare these future leaders.

At EGADE Business School, part of Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey, ESG is not seen as a branding tool or a philanthropic addition. Instead, it is embedded into the core of business strategy. Successful ESG impact requires a boardroom-level commitment rooted in financial impact, innovation, and long-term value creation.

To meet this goal, EGADE recently launched a Master in Sustainable Business.

Boyd Cohen, Director of the programme, explains that sustainability is positioned as an innovation opportunity within the degree, helping students design competitive business models that create environmental and social value while remaining financially viable.

“We need to rethink the role of business,” says Cohen, “and use technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and renewable energy to generate abundance, improve quality of life, and ensure profitability.”

As extractive industries, agribusiness and green infrastructure continue to expand in the region, universities have a central role in ensuring that ESG is embedded into national development strategies, he shares.

Understanding ESG Efforts Across Countries

There is clearly a focused effort on developing and implementing effective ESG frameworks across Latin American countries, notes Rodríguez. Yet, there are significant differences between countries, driven by each nation’s specific needs and challenges.

Brazil, for example, has implemented ESG developments focused on the Amazon rainforest, addressing the regulatory limitations that need to be strengthened to combat deforestation and protect biodiversity.

However, these topics tend to have less prominence in countries like Mexico and Chile, where water scarcity and desertification are far more pressing. In these countries, water conservation, sustainable land use and resource resilience play a greater role.

Despite national differences, there is a common thread that draws the region together. The emergence of ESG-related programmes across Latin America seeks to address a local need: to train talent capable of managing the region’s human and natural resources responsibly, Rodríguez explains.

“One of the clearest signs of this shift is the growing connection between this educational training and the interests of new investors seeking sustainable operations and well-prepared leadership,” he adds.

Dr Ana Nacvalovaite, Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Kellogg College's Centre on Mutual & Co-owned Business, believes that higher education institutions have a central role to play in ensuring that ESG is embedded into national development strategies.

“Universities will have to move beyond siloed sustainability courses, and embed ESG across disciplines, from engineering and economics to law and political science,” she says.

She explains that ESG education in Latin America can help equip future leaders in public policy and civil society – not just business. This can help them develop context-specific approaches that prioritise social justice, Indigenous rights, climate resilience and institutional integrity.

“The future of ESG in Latin America will depend not only on regulation or markets,” states Dr Nacvalovaite, “but on education systems that can localise global ESG principles and build institutional capacity from the ground up.”

Embedding Sustainability into Traditional Business Programmes

It’s not as simple as adding sustainability to pre-existing programmes. For many schools, adding ESG requires a complete restructure of the curricula. And schools are striving to make ESG learning as engaging as possible for students. The aim is to inspire and educate, and schools are being inventive with how they achieve this.

In Costa Rica, INCAE Business School is integrating ESG and sustainable development into its curriculum and institutional strategy through participation in the Positive Impact Rating – a student and faculty driven assessment that helps business schools evaluate their commitment to sustainability and ethical practices worldwide.

INCAE describes its approach to sustainability as “the transversal axis of its mission,” integrating it into research, executive education and creating links with the public and private sectors.

At Peru’s Pacífico Business School, ethics and social responsibility courses have been integrated into each of its master’s programmes, and the school has also launched a Master’s in Sustainable Business. In addition, the school has opened an entire Corporate Governance Center, organising events and talks open to students and the public.

The school’s Center for Leadership, Ethics and Social Responsibility has the mission to contribute to the training of responsible leaders and the promotion of sustainable human development through the building, promotion and dissemination of an ethical, socially responsible culture.

Ecuador’s Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), as embedded sustainability as a foundational principle into each of its courses, Ana María Novillo Rameix, the Dean of the school’s College of Business Administration, tells QS Insights Magazine.

“We must prepare professionals who not only understand the urgency of sustainability but who can lead and innovate responsibly,” she states, adding that when it comes to ESG, the region cannot afford to postpone action.

As part of this initiative, every USFQ student completes a capstone project during their degree that must demonstrate both financial feasibility and a measurable social or environmental impact aligned with one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Students regularly get involved with other practical projects, such as consulting projects for real entrepreneurs, design thinking workshops, and sustainability-focused business simulations.

“Our graduate students increasingly want to connect their education with personal purpose,” she says. “They expect to be equipped not just with tools for financial success, but with frameworks for long-term impact.

“Employers are also evolving, they now prioritise ESG competency alongside innovation and leadership potential.”

Argentina’s IAE Business School also teaches students in a way that transcends traditional classroom learning. One notable example is the Hackathon, where students co-develop triple-impact business solutions – economic, social, and environmental – within a 48-hour challenge format.

The school grounds theory in local case studies – many of which are drawn from businesses facing institutional voids, inequality and environmental stressors. This helps students contextualise decisions within Latin America’s unique realities, explains Professor María José Murcia, Academic Director of the Full-Time MBA at IAE Business School.

IAE’s redesigned MBA reflects this approach. “It’s a call to future managers to reimagine leadership, not just as business performance, but as societal contribution,” she says.

With a renewed admissions process, an ethics-driven curriculum, and a focus on real-world, Latin America-centred challenges, the programme aims to shape leaders capable of navigating the contradictions and opportuniti

Fuelled by Student Demand

Professor Murcia, who is also the Director of the Center for Studies in Sustainability and Social Innovation (CESIS) at Universidad Austral, says that most Latin American business schools, particularly in Argentina, initially introduced ESG topics as standalone courses.

“However, it quickly became evident within faculty circles that ESG should be a cross-cutting theme integrated across the curriculum,” she explains.

Interestingly this shift was not just academically driven; it was fuelled by student demand for more holistic, values-driven, impact-oriented education.

“Latin America is the most unequal region in the world, which gives the ‘S’ in ESG heightened relevance,” she says. “Social inclusion, poverty reduction and equitable access to opportunities are central concerns for any sustainable development agenda.

“Latin America’s profound socio-environmental challenges, extreme inequality, fragile institutions and a rich but often unsustainably exploited natural resource base, make ESG education not only relevant but imperative.”