Shawn Lesser of Sustainable World Capital recently ranked the best universities for driving cleantech energy initiatives. Cleantech is defined as new technology and related business models that offer competitive returns for investors and customers while providing solutions to global challenges.

Texas placed third on his list, and he wrote, "The University of Texas at Austin is a historical leader in energy innovation, R&D and teaching. With abundant oil and gas on its own lands, and deep connections to the energy industry, UT has directly profited from its energy leadership and its graduates have populated the highest executive ranks of the world’s energy companies.... The good news is that UT is using its leadership of the conventional energy industry as a launching pad for continued leadership in the cleantech revolution." Read more.

Franklin Fuchs, a second-year MBA student and outgoing president of the McCombs Cleantech Group, says that his organization has doubled in size in the last year.

"This is largely because the university and McCombs want to remain leaders in energy education and have committed to that goal by supporting a variety of clean technology initiatives," he said. "When you combine that commitment from the university with the natural abundance of renewable resources in Texas, the favorable policy environment in the state and the long history of the energy industry in Texas, there is no better place for an MBA interested in clean technology to be."