Spotlight

Embedding sustainability strategically

Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM) first formalized its commitment to sustainability and positive impact in 2007 by signing Global Compact. Since, we see our commitment regularly assessed against a broad range of frameworks including the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), national and international accreditation standards and more recently, directives such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. Our decision in 2021 to become the first business school to adopt the status of a Société à Mission (a French legal structure similar to a B-Corp that requires organizations to fully integrate social and environmental concerns into their objectives and then be audited every 2 years on progress) was also a move to create visibility and accountability for our transformation. In parallel, stakeholders such as students, faculty, professional staff, corporate partners and society are increasingly demanding of our commitment and its coherency, ambition and impact.

To achieve success, it is essential to place sustainability at the core of a school's strategic framework. The strategy must incorporate a strong commitment to respecting planetary boundaries, upholding principles of equality and inclusion, and adhering to the highest ethical standards. This commitment must be clearly articulated and visibly championed by leadership. Furthermore, the school's mission, vision, and values must align with its stance on sustainability, effectively communicating its unique contribution and positioning in this domain.

The alignment then cascades down into the school’s diverse activities, productions and interactions. Objectives must be well defined as should a series of KPIs that allow progress to be monitored and course correction to occur if necessary. Within our current strategy at GEM, our sustainability objectives are across four primary areas of activity: teaching and learning, research, institutional behavior and interaction with and influence on our ecosystems. The sections that follow will address each one of these areas.

Sustainability in the Curriculum: Moving Beyond Electives

Our programs, their content and the pedagogical experiences that we provide to our learners are one of our major areas of impact. Whether degree granting or executive education, it is through our programs that we are providing individuals with the tools they will need to enact and accompany change in both their personal and professional lives. As such, our approach to sustainability in our programs must be holistic.

We believe sustainability should not be limited to standalone courses but integrated across all disciplines. We must ensure a common base of knowledge around the challenges we face, often in the form of a dedicated module, and then look at them through the lenses of the different core business areas such as finance, strategy, marketing, etc. We must also ensure that learners are developing the competencies needed to navigate these transitions. Experiential learning opportunities are important as they place students in situations where they build their own tool kits and understand the greater dynamics at play. These experiences may take the form of internships, corporate projects, sustainability challenges, serious games, student association projects, to name a few.

It is important that schools develop partnerships with external stakeholders who can bring their real-world sustainability challenges into the broad range of student learning experiences. Interdisciplinarity and the hybridization of knowledge is also an important tool for equipping students to deal with complex, multi-faceted problems that they will need to know how to unpick to imagine and offer solutions.

None of this is possible however without special attention paid to supporting faculty as they question and adapt their course content to both integrate issues around sustainability as well as continue to challenge their students and encourage them to think critically.

Researching Sustainability: Generating Knowledge for Impact

The second area, that of thought leadership in sustainability, begins with rigorous academic research that addresses pressing global issues. But it doesn’t stop there. Rigorous research must also be made relevant to the broad spectrum of communities and organizations that are looking for answers and different ways of doing what they have always done. Our approach at Grenoble Ecole de Management has been to establish dedicated research centers in the form of teams, institutes and chairs, each with a different approach and final product, all complementary in the way they serve different needs. By engaging in applied research around topics such as sustainable finance, territorial transitions, energy for society, the circular economy, GEM researchers are seeking to provide answers to issues we are facing and to anticipate issues to come.

Walking our Talk: Operationalizing Sustainability on Campus

Our third area of activity at GEM is through what we refer to as institutional behavior. We believe that understanding and promoting sustainability is also done through leading by example. Business schools must put into practice what they teach concerning social and environmental policies and initiatives. They should not hesitate to position themselves as labs for society where they can pilot sustainability solutions that can then be scaled elsewhere. At GEM, this includes a number of green campus initiatives and policies around zero-waste such as eliminating single-use plastics from campus, ensuring that all food service employs re-usable or compostable packaging and no food waste.

Energy reduction and efficiency have impacted our new building and renovation plans with objectives around reducing energy use and transitioning to renewable energy sources where possible. Our list of project areas also includes encouraging sustainable transportation through bike-sharing programs and subsidized public transport passes. Like many of our peer institutions, we have been conducting carbon footprinting studies and have put into place annual targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Equally important are policies and actions supporting diversity, inclusion and well-being. These cover both students and staff and are manifest through a number of charters and policy documents. They are also increasingly integrated into training, objectives and incentives for managers and employees

Collaborating with External Communities and Stakeholders

Finally, our fourth area of emphasis is on our interactions with our different communities and stakeholders (“ecosystems” as we commonly refer to them) and the positive influence and impact that we can have. We believe that sustainability is a collective endeavor and that our partnerships amplify impact and foster innovation.

Examples of our practices at GEM include collaborations with the city and greater metropolitan area addressing urban sustainability challenges. Our multi-partner Territories in Transition Chair works to analyze, imagine and experiment new solutions to guide the transformation of territories in favor of social and environmental sustainability. Our GEM Labs campus and its platforms for experimentation and innovation regularly host companies who want to work through common problems and use ideation and design techniques to imagine solutions to arising issues. The School engages regularly with local SMEs and startups to foster sustainable business models.

Fostering a Culture of Sustainability Among Students and Alumni

Empowering our internal business school communities to act sustainably comes through our lived and shared experiences. At GEM, we do this on several levels. First, for our students, several associations exist that are purely devoted to sustainability topics and for those focused in different areas, there is a sustainability officer elected within the association to ensure that all of their actions are compatible with the sustainability policies of the school. These associations organize workshops, awareness campaigns and local impact projects. A group of students from the GEM association called ImpAct has been certified to carry out a carbon footprint analysis and they do it annually for the school. Their analysis and ensuing recommendations for action and improvement become a part of the carbon strategy for the school. Beyond their participation in associations, students are offered a variety of activities such as the Sustainability Day for all incoming students where they are taken outside of the school to a multitude of venues such as local ski resorts to witness climate change first hand and work on solutions to help the local economies that are impacted. We also offer a Sustainability Week that engages students in an intense week of solving real sustainability issues brought to the school by local companies. Within our alumni group, there is a dedicated CSR chapter for alumni working in these areas.

It is important that student-driven initiatives are recognized supported to help instill ownership. These extracurricular activities are an important part of the learning experience and help with the building of important skills and knowledge. Creating opportunities to engage students and alumni together is a way to showcase real-world applications of sustainable leadership and inspire current students.

Challenges and Persistence

The list of challenges is long. They range from resistance to change by some stakeholders to extreme eco-anxiety by others. Balancing financial constraints with sustainability goals challenges us daily as does keeping up with the rapidly evolving expectations and benchmarks. Some days, it is just a challenge to remain optimistic when faced with the continued onslaught of climate, social and geopolitical disasters.

And yet, this is a unique collective endeavor and as business schools, we should be motivated by our responsibility and desire to effect lasting positive change. By bringing together our stakeholders and collaborating as schools we have the potential to move faster and further. The sharing of good practices and insights as well as of lessons and failures, will greatly increase our impact.