An alliance of business schools against climate change to face "a challenge that impacts humanity"
"Business schools pride themselves in being relevant, and climate change is a challenge that impacts humanity, so we need to be present", declares David Bach, President of IMD
International Institute for Management Development
Business School (Switzerland), on 25/04/2025.
He is speaking at the Change Now event in Paris (France), centred around the ecological and social transition and taking place from 24 to 26/04/2025.
Four business schools are represented: HEC
École des hautes études commerciales de Paris
, Insead (France), IE Business School (Spain), and IMD. They are talking about the Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL), a "pioneering research and thought partnership" gathering eight European business schools and launched at the COP26 in 2021.
The alliance also includes IESE
Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa
Business School (Spain), London Business School, Cambridge Judge Business School and Said Business School (UK
United Kingdom
). The presidency of BS4CL rotates, and Éloïc Peyrache, Dean and General Director at HEC Paris, is this year's chairman.
"The idea is to connect with regional and local governments, build capacity, disseminate knowledge, and bring academic research to the real world", he says.
"As leading European business schools, the founding members have the responsibility to accelerate business activities towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN
United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change", reports the alliance.
The partnership is focused on Europe, but similar ones are developed with business schools in Africa and the Middle East. These "regional clusters" are fairly autonomous, but all share best practices and materials.
How can business schools tackle climate change
David Bach explains why this alliance of business schools can participate in tackling climate change: "Business education is multidisciplinary. We can help with metrics, provide information, support the transition, and educate leaders on how to reimagine products and make them more circular…
"Sustainability is also a leadership challenge. We need leaders to think differently, which means engaging with a much broader set of stakeholders."
"Business schools have a multitude of stakeholders we engage with. When we collectively work to amplify this connection, it can amplify and drive impact. And systemic change is driven by impact, not only on how we train our students but also on how we impact stakeholders", indicates Francisco Veloso, Dean of Insead.
Different goals for students depending on their initial engagement and knowledge
"Students recognise that using the tools of capitalism (financial markets, funding models, the kind of scale that you can get when you actually generate profit and surplus) are really important", explain the business schools' leaders.
"There are lots of other tools—we talked about policy, we talked about science—but the tools of business have to be part of the solution. The people who come to our programmes recognise that these tools play an important role in accelerating the transition."
For students who arrive at school less involved or less informed, the goal is recalibrated to making them "evolve in their understanding and commitment".
Train the next (and current) generation of leaders
The business schools "aim to train the next generation of leaders to have sustainable business practices and carry that mindset". To achieve that, they present the following actions:
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"We have free student courses open to all PhD students broadly that we put together as an alliance. The number of participants has doubled since last year, and we have plans to expand it", explains Lee Newman, Dean of IE Business School.
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"We are trying to make our knowledge accessible to the next generation of scholars, but also to the current generation of leaders, through webinars.
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We also produce teaching materials and cases on sustainability, and we are working on pulling those resources to make them available for other schools so all students can benefit from them and have the skills required by employers at the moment", says David Bach.
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"We also have meetings of alumni, which are an opportunity to learn. Bringing the collective knowledge creates a more empowering and vibrant community. It can push forward and amplify impact. Many of our alumni who are leaders now can push that change", reports Francisco Veloso.
Revision of business schools' programmes and double degrees to equip students for climate change
Business schools are increasingly including science and technology into their teaching, as climate change is a scientific phenomenon. For example, Insead embedded sustainability into all the core courses of its MBA Master of Business Administration programme.
"As a result, every student on the programme understands how sustainability fits into all the tools. Then they can think in terms of concrete solutions that can be implemented", says Francisco Veloso.
This hybridisation of specialisms, between management and other scientific fields, is reflected in a Master's in Sustainability and Business Transformation, recently launched by IE Business School. "It’s a one-year, very business-focused degree, and you can combine that with a Master’s in Management or an MBA. So it’s a double degree, and it's probably the best degree launch we’ve ever had, which says that the market is looking for these things."
Taking advantage of collectiveness and teaching the right skills
According to Éloïc Peyrache, "one of the challenges we have in business schools is how to make sure future leaders speak the language: We need them to understand the data and metrics to make good solutions, so we bring in more science in our business schools."
"We are also building an ecosystem with people from different backgrounds (NGOs Non-Governmental Organisations , students, CEOs,…) to co-construct solutions together. We have to leverage being together and work jointly on implementable solutions, so they don’t just sit on the shelf."
"We may think we are moving fast, but we need to go faster" (D. Bach)
According to the representatives of business schools, a lot is left to do to maximise business schools' impact on climate change and sustainability:
"We need to do more on how we engage with employers, there is no point in doing all of this if the job market isn’t welcoming it. We need to tell companies that it will matter to them and the world", declares Francisco Veloso.
"What is missing is the courage to do even better. We may think we are moving fast, but we need to go faster. We are doing a lot on the supply side, but the demand side is driving our sector. We need to say to employers that if they are talking about sustainability, they should recruit on our campuses, because we have those skills", adds David Bach.
Business schools also need to teach students specific soft skills to prepare them for any future challenge: "You don’t need to be an expert, but someone who connects the dots to get things done. We need to keep this DNA of being solution-oriented", says Éloïc Peyrache.
Sustainability as a tool for European competitiveness
"We are here to encourage entrepreneurial solutions, not just in general but as a key element of changing the competitiveness of Europe, as other parts of the world may be less attuned to the business opportunity that decarbonisation can represent", says Lee Newman.
David Bach circles back on the Draghi report on European competitiveness: "The emphasis on decarbonisation was both on sustainability and bringing down the cost of energy."
"What has changed over the last six months, of course, is the geopolitical dimension. Now, renewable energies are not only better for the planet, but also less expensive and give Europe energy sovereignty."
In his view, business schools are "connected to all these elements: the entrepreneurs who make it possible, the political decision-makers who create the conditions, and the financial system that has to fund it".