The Dispatch
Business education for change
In response to global crises, a group of European business schools have come together to equip the leaders of tomorrow with the skills needed to tackle these challenges.
By Niamh Ollerton
"Engaging the alums is an important aspect, because that amplifies what you can do. The alumni community at our schools are super engaged, with leaders everywhere."
Global climate change is a problem that can no longer be ignored.
Forest fires are becoming more widespread, burning nearly twice as much tree cover today as they did 20 years ago - with global wildfires adding around 5 to 8 billion tonnes of CO2 each year. Antarctica is losing ice mass at an average rate of about 150 billion tonnes per year, and Greenland is losing about 270 billion tonnes per year, adding to sea level rise. And according to the UNCCD, 1.84 billion people are drought stricken, out of which 4.7 percent are exposed to severe or extreme drought.
These numbers paint a harrowing picture as to the future of our planet if the citizens of the world do not take action. Future leaders of the world therefore need to understand the challenges at hand, to drive governments, organisations and people forward, to evoke the change we need in the world.
And that is why, in 2021, Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) was born.
The pioneering research and thought leadership partnership brings together eight European business schools, INSEAD, IE Business School, IMD, London Business School, Oxford Said Business School, HEC Paris, Cambridge Judge Business School and IESE Business School. Together, their shared mission is to generate, disseminate and amplify evidence-based research, actionable insights and thought leadership for corporate executives, students, educators and policymakers who are at the forefront of driving the climate transition.
This year, the second edition of the BS4CL forum was held at INSEAD’s Fontainebleau, France, campus, with attendees and panellists taking a deep dive into the topic: ‘Who pays for the climate transition? The role of business in driving solutions’.
Lee Newman, Dean of IE Business School in Spain and Francisco Veloso, Dean of INSEAD offered their insights into why the BS4CL partnership is so important, the need for collaboration, knowledge sharing and a sustainable mindset in business education, and the importance of collaboration to amplify the initiative's impact, engage the larger global community, and balance growth with coordination.
But first and foremost, what does BS4CL mean to the business schools? And what are they hoping to achieve through the collaborative initiative?
Newman says: “I think first of all, it's very unique. You have eight schools in Europe coming together to do something in a comprehensive way.
“Each of us are doing many things with teaching and research related to climate and impact, but I think there's a sense of urgency that leads us to collaborate, and then this idea that with collective action, we can accelerate and exponentiate the impact that we have as business schools.”
A sentiment Veloso agrees with, adding that the purpose behind BS4CL is to also drive attention and focus to the issue of climate change.
“There are shorter term elements related to how we engage, how we provide better understanding of the issues, that we create a platform for alums and others to contribute to this discussion and to point to solutions and contributions that each of us have.
“There's also another element that we've been quite active in, which is to make sure that the next generation of business school leaders and academics are aware and prepared to then go and teach the next generations.
“That's one of the things that this collective group of schools have. It's not only what we do, but we also contribute to the next generation of faculty members that are going to then go into different business schools to train the next generation of leaders themselves.”
Short term, higher education institutions need to ensure sustainability is significantly part of their agenda, and as academics, Veloso notes that the long-term focus needs to be ensuring they can contribute to that agenda in a meaningful way.
A shift in student desire
Newman took on the role as Dean of IE business school two and a half years ago, reaching out to stakeholders, alumni and students upon starting his role to get a feel for the landscape.
“It was incredible to me. Over and over again, the one word I heard was purpose. If it wasn't purpose, it was meaning, and if it wasn't meaning, it was values,” he says.
“Not everybody can define a purpose in one clear sentence, but I don't think that takes away from the fact that they're looking for ways to engage with what they do in their studies or professional career.
“There definitely is a psychographic change, I think is really important. It's definitely driving us to rethink many things in teaching in particular. What it's led us to do is really focus on integrating sustainability throughout the curriculums of all of our programmes.
“You can think about sustainability as a hard skill or soft skill, and so we can change the way we teach finance or marketing, for example, to change the way people think about business practices through the lens of sustainability.
“I personally think the soft skills side of it is critical; changing mindsets. I think we need to send out the next generation of business professionals and leaders who have a sense of responsibility built in. That's not something you teach in a theoretical, conceptual way; that has to come directly from immersive situations and experiences that really change their mindsets.”
Veloso agrees with Newman, noting that they are seeing more and more students that are very present in their priorities; in the way they see the future and the world. “They want to be in an environment that responds and caters to that.”
INSEAD has made significant changes in their curriculum, Veloso notes, most significantly with the MBA, where all the core courses were changed to make sure that they had a sustainability component, as well as changes to the capstone project.
“I think it’s important to recognise the shift in the students' mindsets,” he says. This is present in the students, as it's present in the population of executives that we work with - but it is important in our role as business schools that we realise that not everybody's there yet.”
During a panel discussion, one audience member said ‘to succeed, we [as a collective of business schools and alumni] need to get the information we share here out of the door’, to disseminate the innovative ideas and initiatives to evoke necessary global change.
But how do Newman and Veloso envisage the sharing of BS4CL knowledge and information to the masses?
Veloso says: “Engaging the alums is an important aspect, because that amplifies what you can do. The alumni community at our schools are super engaged, with leaders everywhere.
“And so, by bringing the schools together, we are signalling to all of our alums that this is important, and it's important beyond an individual school.
“It sends the signal, as well as provides contact points and ideas and opportunities, as we've seen through the conference for them to get more mobilised, to understand what they can do.”
Veloso notes that looking at solutions that work is imperative. “The research and intellectual leadership is important to make sure that when we're looking at these things, we're looking at it in a rigorous way; in a way that focuses on solutions that can make a difference to the planet and to the people.
“This is why research and intellectual leadership is an essential part of the language, and then bring that in a way that is amplified and distributed to the community.”
Collaboration is key to evoke change
Both Newman and Veloso drive home the importance of collaboration if we are to achieve climate action goals - especially from the business school perspective.
Veloso notes that collaboration is important as things change so rapidly, and no one really knows what the true solutions are.
Collaboration enables business schools and organisations to learn more about different approaches that could be used in different environments and spaces, but Veloso believes collaboration will be the enabler of what BS4CL is trying to address to create solutions.
“I think we need to focus on what we want. We want people to understand what works and what they can do to make a difference on one hand, on the other hand, to convince those that do not yet understand how close we are to breaking the critical planetary boundaries - that action has to be taken now. It's that balance between those two dimensions that I think is quite important.”
Veloso also notes the power of the BS4CL initiative, and that the collaboration between the eight business schools is meaningful, as it signals that business is part of the solution.
“What we're saying here is that business is, and needs to be, absolutely central to climate solutions that we put in place, because we cannot get to the scale and to the impact without that.
“And that's why it's important for us to make that stand, so that this is not seen as an antagonistic perspective, but much more an integrative and collaborative space that we're all to go in the same direction.”
Newman echoes Veloso, agreeing that business being part of the solution towards climate change and climate action is vital. “That is part of the founding ideas of BS4CL, but I think it’s also starting to be taken up around the world.”
However, trust and credibility are two dimensions that create questions in the eyes of global audiences according to the Edelman Trust Barometer.
Newman says: “If we look at private companies, NGOs, governments and the media; the four that people look at, you can imagine where governments come out. People see the government as low in trust and low capability, and an NGO is high in trust but not so high in capability.
“What's interesting is that the increasing consensus you see in surveys is that business is seen as quite high in trust and capability, so I think the message is yes, some businesses are part of the problem, but increasingly it seems that the world is looking to business as a potentially trustworthy partner to have the capacity to push the solutions.
“I think that's where the critical role of business schools comes in. Engineering schools and Science and Technology schools are generating intellectual property that is badly needed to solve problems from a technical standpoint, but as a business school, our focus is for people who are going to manage the business practices and the use of these technologies.
“I think we have the power and the obligation to do what we can to make a difference in how we train the next generation of leaders, and together, we do that a lot better.”