The new certificate program will guide participants to the core of today's business sustainability issues and solutions, said Dr. Matthew Heim, program coordinator for the Sustainable Enterprise Certificate. "We will not re-teach the basics of business and management," Heim said. "Our curriculum will provide managers with the right mix of theory and experiential learning that will enable them to tackle today's sustainability challenges."

The Sustainable Enterprise Certificate program will be offered in two ways. Managers can attend a six-month series of classes at Dominican. Classes will be held weekends at the San Rafael campus, with the first cohort beginning in Fall 2008.

Dominican also will offer a five-month in-house certificate program designed for organizations that want to train a cohort of 10 or more managers. This program will be offered at the business, with regular on-site meetings held every other week and two, two-day off-site meetings. The cohort will focus on a team project specifically designed to address the organization's immediate sustainability issues.

The certificate curriculum will teach participants how to identify, apply, promote, and incorporate new tools and modes of thinking that improve financial, social, and environmental performance.

"Now is the time to be proactive about green enterprise as the business climate evolves due to increasing concerns over the global effects of climate change," Heim said. "This green awakening will grow sharply in coming years as green business evolves from an oxymoron to a mainstream concept," he added.

"The key is for business leaders to begin corporate social responsibility initiatives now and to begin embedding CSR in the core of their operations so that three years from now they are not looking back thinking 'could have, would have, should have.' Instead, the companies that have adopted CSR will be well ahead of the game three years from now -- because green business is not going away.