Henley Business School continues its rise up sustainability rankings for its Executive MBA

Henley Business School’s Executive MBA has continued its climb up the Corporate Knights Better World MBA ranking, placing 13th globally in the 2026 ranking released today.

The annual ranking assesses how extensively sustainability features in the MBA curriculum and looks at how many recent graduates work in impact organizations. The 2026 survey increased the weighting for alumni employment in impact organisations from 10% to 20%, while sustainability integration in core courses accounts for 80%.

‘It is right that business schools should be judged both on the quality of their teaching and on what graduates go on to contribute,’ comments Jon Foster-Pedley, Dean and Director of Henley Business School Africa and Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement, Sub-Saharan Africa, at the University of Reading.

‘Sustainability is no longer an abstract principle in business; it is lived reality. Business graduates today need to navigate issues from water stress, energy insecurity, and fragile communities to geopolitical volatility. That reality is now reshaping global business education, and Henley is at the forefront.’

From climate commitments to business choices

The result comes as COP31, the United Nations climate conference taking place in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9–20 November, brings renewed attention to the decisions required to address climate change.

For business leaders, those decisions extend across finance, operations, technology and employment. They include how to fund cleaner production, protect essential services against disruption and ensure that the transition creates opportunities for workers and smaller businesses.

‘Every climate commitment eventually reaches someone’s desk as a decision about money, people or priorities,’ says Foster-Pedley. ‘In a country like South Africa, leaders must work through those choices alongside the urgent need for jobs, reliable infrastructure and wider economic participation. An MBA must prepare people to make progress within that complexity.’

Connecting graduates to real-world challenges

The changing commercial environment and the rise of AI reinforce the relevance of the education that Henley’s Executive MBA can provide to African leaders, adds Lyneth Zungu, Director of MBA Programmes at Henley Africa.

The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase in January 2026, sharpening the focus on emissions associated with certain traded goods. For South African businesses exporting to Europe, new carbon-related trade requirements are making emissions a competitiveness issue, reinforcing the need for leaders who understand how sustainability affects costs, investment and access to market, while the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure is raising questions about electricity supply, water use and the distribution of economic benefits. These issues connect directly to competitiveness and investment.

‘For leaders in Africa, all this is likely to be part of their daily reality, and we need to understand that,’ says Zungu. ‘Delegates bring live organisational challenges into their studies and take new thinking back into their workplaces to support their decision-making. The opportunity is to develop a lasting habit of examining who benefits from a decision, what risks it creates and whether it will stand up over time.’

Leading a major group of world universities in the global response to climate change

Henley’s sustainability focus feeds into a broader institutional story. Its parent institution, the University of Reading, is the current host of the International Universities Climate Alliance (IUCA) and will have an active presence at the upcoming COP31, having participated in the global climate conference and negotiation platform for over a decade. In 2026, Reading was ranked joint 30th in the world out of 2,002 institutions in the QS Sustainability Rankings.

Henley joins the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, ranked second, and the Gordon Institute of Business Science, ranked 27^th, as the three African business schools in the global Top 40 of the 2026 Corporate Knights Better World MBA ranking. This result follows its strongest performance to date in the Financial Times Executive MBA Ranking, placing 32nd globally in 2026 and 7th for international course experience. It also placed 57th globally in the QS Executive MBA Rankings 2026.

‘The value of this recognition lies in the work it encourages us to keep doing,’ says Foster-Pedley. ‘We want graduates who can build successful businesses, strengthen institutions and expand opportunity. Sustainability becomes meaningful when it informs the everyday decisions through which leaders shape the future.’