Question 1: Why is it important for managers to include social responsibility and environmental responsibility along with goals to increase profits in their strategic planning?

Question 2:

An extraordinary effort began almost 50 years ago. Indias Barefoot College is an educational organization working in 1,300 villages across nearly 80 of the worlds least developed countries in Asia, Africa, the Pacific islands, and South America. Its mission is to improve rural lives and communities through learning-by-doing training programs in health care, womens empowerment, solar energy, water, and land development that are designed and built by and for the poor.

Barefoot College is based on the guiding principles of service and sustainability espoused by Mahatma Gandhi, along with a commitment to equality, shared decision making, and self-reliance. Its projects have brought artificial light to more than half a million people and provide clean water and solar energy for cooking and heating to thousands of communities. Its Enriche program, begun in 2015, is dedicated to using simple methods to empower rural women of all ages, even if illiterate, with the scientific and engineering skills they need to undertake environmental stewardship, manage solar energy, and protect womens reproductive health. Its four building blocks are enhance, enable, engage, establish.

Each woman in the program is trained to teach others in turn. Those trained in the six-month solar energy program in Tilonia, India, a campus powered by an off-grid solar system, come from around the world. They receive fellowship grants from the Indian government while enrolled and leave with a stipend for starting their own business.

Sanjit Bunker Roy, educated in Delhi, was from a wealthy background, but in his 20s he decided to try living on $1 a day. Based on that experience, as a young social worker in 1972 he created Barefoot College, which he calls the only College where the teacher is the learner and the learner the teacher. He has been honored by Time magazine for his grass roots social entrepreneurship and was Business Standards 2016 Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Says Roy, People find something in themselves that they never thought they had. And then go back to the communities they are from and show what they learnedthats how leaders are born.

Roys ambitious plans for Barefoot Colleges near future include efforts to triple the number of people it trains, reaching 6 million by 2018, by opening more of its simple training centers around the world and making greater use of digital teaching materials and methods. These plans will be supported by an infusion of $11 million, which he hopes to raise from corporate partners.

• In what ways do you think Barefoot Colleges mission and goals are characteristic of a sustainable enterprise?

• Which of Barefoot Colleges guiding principles have you observed where you have worked or volunteered? Choose a principle you might not have observed and explain how you would go about incorporating it into your current or a recent workplace.