Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise
Businesses have a vital role to play in solving social and environmental issues through innovation, market development, and entrepreneurship.
With more than 20 years’ experience, the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise works with faculty who are at the forefront of research, teaching and engagement related to helping businesses address sustainability problems. We provide students distinctive experiential learning opportunities and collaborate with organizations to help to tackle the grand challenges of our time, such as climate change, ecosystem degradation, and poverty.
Featured stories
Building Nol Karbon AI: AI for sustainability and scalable carbon impact
Pera Malinda Sihite, MBA ’26, spent the summer expanding Nol Karbon AI, a startup dedicated to environmental data intelligence.
From campus energy to global systems: The Global Sustainability Challenge at Stanford
Tika Diagnestya, MBA ’27, represented Cornell in the competition and learned the value of interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability challenges.
Future proof: What a sake brewer can teach America about sustainability
In rural Japan, Kaiser Khoo, MBA ’26, saw sustainability become a fight to keep a place, its culture and its future from fading.
Cornell Business News
Experts spotlight financial strategies to advance sustainability
Financial strategies can advance sustainability, if environmental trade-offs can be measured and incorporated into decisions, experts said at Climate Week NYC 2026.
Creative tourism plan fosters forest protection, economic growth in Puerto Rico
The U.S. Forest Service and the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise shape sustainable tourism for El Yunque National Forest after recent natural disasters.
Cornellians to address AI, NY energy future at Climate Week NYC
Dean Karolyi and SC Johnson College faculty are leading events on finance for systems change and sustainable tourism.
Research with impact
Strengthening sustainable tourism’s role in biodiversity conservation and community resilience
Megan Epler Wood, Ante Mandić, International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2025
Summary: In this publication, the authors develop a framework with three strategic goals for visitation to Protected and Conserved Areas (PCAs). These goals focus on tourism revenue, resilience and livelihoods, and collaborative governance systems, which aim to expand sustainable tourism’s role in strengthening biodiversity and incentivize equitable economic development. The research examines multiple case studies to demonstrate how tourism can drive biodiversity conservation and outline a framework for how stakeholders can position tourism to be environmentally responsible and foster long-term sustainability.
Upcoming events
The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise has events throughout the year. Check to see how you can get involved
October 13, 2026 at 1:00pm
Big Red Microenterprise DEADLINE EXTENDED
Want real world experience working with a real client and business? Join BRM! MBA students in BRM coach a local…
October 21, 2026 at 3:30pm
Semlitz Family Sustainability Fellows Information Session
Info session for first-year MBAs to learn more about the Semlitz Family Sustainability Fellows program. This is a FUNDED opportunity!…
November 20, 2026 at 10:00am
Cornell Energy Connection 2026
Join us for this one-day event to engage with professionals and students interested in the energy transition. Keynotes and panels…
Stay in touch with the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise
Check out our recent newsletters below. Please email CSGE@cornell.edu to be added to our distribution list.
Center projects spanning the globe
The center hosts annual conferences surrounding the energy transition and business impact, hosts roundtables and networking events during NYC Climate week, and partners in research around the world.
The center also provides hands-on learning opportunities for graduate students interested in learning how businesses address environmental and social problems through innovation and enterprise. Click on the map to learn more about the diversity of companies and types of challenges we work on.
“My best decision at Johnson was joining SGE. Hands down!”
– Mikey Arsnow, MBA ’19
“The SGE program is more than a class, it is a community building exercise. We worked hard but also played hard while learning about win-win solutions for business and the world.”
– Mercedes Moran Enriquez, MBA ‘20
Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ Land Acknowledgment for the Ithaca campus
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.