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Corporate Social Responsibility

Launched in 2003, the Center for Responsible Business has made the Haas School of Business the preeminent educational institution for research, teaching, experiential learning, and community outreach in areas of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

As a premier educational center bridging research, theory, and practice of CSR, the Center strives to educate all of its stakeholders on the roles and responsibilities of business in society. Topics such as strategic corporate responsibility, social enterprise, social investing, and metrics of sustainability are explored in a robust series of programs and through research, teaching, and experiential learning projects.

Beyond the core curriculum, concentrated study is available through elective courses, including an innovative strategic CSR projects course in which student teams work directly with major firms, such as eBay, Brown-Forman and Deloitte.

The center hosts the Peterson Lecture Series, which draws top industry speakers, such as the chairman and CEO of Whole Foods, the whistleblower from Enron, and the senior vice president of sustainability at Wal-Mart. In addition, there is a wide variety of popular programs that enable students to experience the lessons of CSR firsthand:

• The Haas Socially Responsible Investment Fund is the first-ever student-managed investment fund at a leading business school that uses CSR criteria as a screen for the fund's portfolio.
• The Sustainable Products & Solutions (SPS) Program, sponsored by Dow Chemical in collaboration with the College of Chemistry, creates a multi-disciplinary learning and research environment where the building blocks of sustainability—society, science, engineering, environment, and finance—are all considered simultaneously as new products and solutions are explored.
• The McDonald's CSR Research Fellows Program gives a diverse team of Berkeley MBA students the opportunity to conduct a deep stakeholder engagement study on McDonald's CSR activities.
• The Moskowitz Research Program examines the foundations and trends in the socially responsible investing industry and issues the Moskowitz Prize, the only global award recognizing outstanding quantitative work on socially responsible investing.
• Other programs include the Gap Inc. CSR Scholars, Levi Strauss Small Grants, LifeScan Fellows, and the Social Enterprise Education Design Fellowship.

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