Eight Elite European B-Schools, One Mission: Fighting Climate Change

by: Marc Ethier on June 09, 2023 | 0 Comments | 63 Views

Left to right: Concepción Galdón, director of IE Business School’s Center for Social Innovation and Sustainability; Ester Baiget, president & CEO of Novozymes; Andrea Baldo, CEO, GANNI; Fabrizio Ferraro, academic director of IESE Business School’s Sustainable Leadership Initiative. Courtesy photo

The mission continues. Twenty months after the COP26 summit that saw its launch as a powerful partnership of the top business schools in Europe, Business Schools for Climate Leadership held its first in-person conference this month on the campus of IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. The message: It’s time for business to act on the global existential threat posed by a warming world.

The alliance comprised of Cambridge Judge Business School, HEC Paris, IE Business School, IESE, INSEAD, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), London Business School, and Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford offered attendees at the two-day event — including three deans of the member schools — an opportunity for industry practitioners and experts to discuss the latest research and ways to collaborate to boost collective impact, as well as an update on the group’s activities and future ambitions and their advancements in climate leadership across academic, program, and operational levels.

“We all face the impacts of global warming and the complicated dynamics of taking a rational approach to dealing with this challenge,” the deans of the eight BS4CL schools said in a prepared statement. “This is a critical moment for business, for business schools and for the planet. While governments and international bodies play an undeniably important role, business is more crucial than ever to determining the future of the planet that we live on. Business leaders with the right knowledge and skills can be a catalyst for positive change in the face of climate change.”

CONTINUING ‘THE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS’

In a report in November 2021 the month after its formation, Business Schools for Climate Leadership offered the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland a “toolkit” aimed at spurring action by business. The eight schools that altogether train more than 55,000 students and executives per year, and which boast hundreds of thousands of alumni across the globe, raised their profile and helped spark a surge of sustainability programming by highlighting “the important role academic institutions must play in providing leadership in times of emergency.”

Calling their coalition “an alliance of business academic thought leaders,” the group urged the global business community to drive and accelerate business activities toward the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change via a 93-page report.

“We recognize the need to initiate the search for answers, which will galvanize and promote meaningful action,” the deans said in 2021. “BS4CL builds on the integrated climate leadership expressed across our individual curricula and faculty research, providing the means to cooperate on a long-term basis. We mean to build the foundations with which businesses can lead global action to collaborate across sectors to limit climate change and to promote meaningful and visible progress. Our Post-COP26 agenda will bring together our collective faculties to share and develop new insights on the rapidly evolving and urgent agenda.”

Left to right: Katell Le Goulven, executive director of the Hoffman Institute for Business and Society at INSEAD; François Ortalo-Magné, dean of London Business School; and Jean-François Manzoni, president of IMD. Courtesy photo

ONE CONFERENCE, 2 PARTS

That post-COP26 agenda moved forward in a big way this month with BS4CL’s first in-person conference at IESE, in part because it represented a significant move past the pandemic restrictions of the last two years.

The conference was made up of two parts: the Climate Leadership Research Conference on June 1 and the Forum: Leading Decarbonization on June 2. The first day was “dedicated to facilitating and deepening interaction among business school researchers working on climate while providing a platform to share the latest research across disciplines,” according to a news release, including papers covering such topics as trading of emission allowances (IESE, MDE Business School), homeowners and sustainability (LBS), and taxing carbon emissions in developing countries (Northwestern University, LBS).

A discussion of the key intersections between business and the climate crisis took place on June 2 at the BS4CL Forum: Leading Decarbonization, which addressed such issues such as the role of business in decarbonizing the world economy and the emergence of global disclosure standards, with special attention paid to the many opportunities that decarbonization creates for businesses across sectors. The event is a unique platform for academic researchers in climate leadership and industry practitioners to interact, share expertise and forge collaborations.

JOINT STATEMENT BY THE DEANS

The full statement by the deans of the eight business schools:

“We all face the impacts of global warming and the complicated dynamics of taking a rational approach to dealing with this challenge. This is a critical moment for business, for business schools and for the planet. While governments and international bodies play an undeniably important role, business is more crucial than ever to determining the future of the planet that we live on. Business leaders with the right knowledge and skills can be a catalyst for positive change in the face of climate change.

“As business schools, the care and development of the next generation of business leaders has been entrusted to us. We want to leave our planet strong for this generation, driven by sustainable principles to make a positive impact.

“Our institutions also serve as role models for other organizations, who will undoubtedly need to cultivate synergistic relationships to make a significant impact on the climate crisis. The combined work of the founding schools since 2021 has identified two strategies as the most efficient in effecting change in the mindset, culture and practices that dominate business. Business schools play a fundamental role in both.

“The first strategy is through structured curricular and program intervention, prioritizing climate-related content and providing the tools and knowledge to tackle the most common issues. The second is through rigorous research that serves to inform businesses about the latest challenges and solutions facing companies. This research guides company action and accelerates our joint impact.

“The importance of business in the combat against climate issues will only increase over the next few years, and it is critical that we have leaders who are skilled, knowledgeable and committed.”

Fabrizio Ferraro, academic director of IESE Business School’s Sustainable Leadership Initiative, speaks at the BS4CL conference this month. Courtesy photo

THE WAY FORWARD

The BS4CL conference at IESE, like all the group’s activities, was designed to raise awareness of the importance of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Its greatest impact is through joint outreach to all alumni communities of all eight member schools, and all through the discussion of key research findings and next steps for the partnership.

Since launching in late 2021, the collaborating schools have produced publications on climate in topics as diverse as EU emission trading system, ESGs, and climate finance. They have also made it a priority to incorporate climate-focused learning into the classroom through a wide variety of measures including the launch of new programs and initiatives and the addition of tracks related to climate and sustainability to existing programs. Read more here: Business Schools for Climate Leadership. And read about individual member school initiatives here:

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