Industry-academia gap is holding back India’s sustainability talent: Masters' Union

A growing disconnect between what universities teach and what businesses need is creating a talent gap in India's sustainability sector, Anushree Poddar, programme director of the PGP in Sustainability & Business Management at Masters' Union, said at the fifth Mint Sustainability Summit in Mumbai.

Delivering a special address on Bridging Academia and Industry: Rethinking Higher Education for Sustainability, Poddar said companies are increasingly struggling to find professionals who understand both sustainability and business.

"There exists a great gap between how businesses work and integrate sustainability, and how sustainability is being taught," she said, adding that the first challenge lies in “the curriculum and what is being taught in the classes.”

According to Poddar, employers are often forced to choose between business graduates with little sustainability knowledge and sustainability graduates with limited business understanding.

"Either you find a business graduate whom you can recruit or somebody who understands sustainability, but not really a bridge between both of that," she said, adding that recruiters often have to train new hires because "either there is a missing skill in the CV or they just know about business."

Drawing from her own career, Poddar said her journey from studying commerce at Delhi University to pursuing a PhD at TERI University, followed by roles in academia and Samsung Electronics' CSR division, helped her recognise the widening gap between sustainability education and industry needs.

New approach

To address this challenge, Masters' Union has introduced a 16-month postgraduate programme in Sustainability & Business Management that combines classroom learning with live industry projects. Students spend 12 months in a residential programme, dividing their time between academic coursework and practical assignments with companies.

"For these live projects, we do not expect the employer to pay them anything. It's just the real value that the student can get in the company and the company can get from that student in return," she said.

Poddar said the curriculum was developed with inputs from industry leaders, researchers and academic experts.

"There has to be a complete integration of ESG, climate finance and carbon markets, renewable energy, circular economy and waste management, agri-tech and supply chain, merged with business models, AI in business, then communications and storytelling," she said.

Diverse cohort

The programme has attracted students from backgrounds including agriculture, biotechnology, life sciences, zoology, commerce and engineering.

"What really warms my heart is to see the kind of students coming in from different domains," she said.

Participants have also come from organisations such as Deloitte, Accenture, ITC and Aon. Around 50-60 students have enrolled so far, with about 60% having prior sustainability experience.

Poddar's remarks come as demand for sustainability professionals continues to rise. According to LinkedIn's Green Skills Report 2025, India's hiring rate for green talent is 59.7% higher than that of the overall workforce.

Masters' Union is a Gurugram-based higher education institution offering postgraduate and executive programmes in business management, technology, finance, family business and sustainability.