HEC Paris collaborates with leading European schools in response to climate crisis
HEC Paris, founding partner of the alliance Business Schools for Climate Leadership is taking the lead with 7 European business schools to address the climate crisis and support business leaders by providing them with the tools to tackle the climate emergency.
Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL.org) is a unique alliance of business academic thought leaders, made up of founding members Cambridge Judge Business School, HEC Paris, IE Business School, IESE Business School, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), INSEAD, London Business School, and Saïd Business School (University of Oxford). Collectively, these institutions train more than 55,000 students and executives per year and are stewards of alumni bodies in excess of 400,000 people.
As agents of change and the catalysts for thought leadership in tomorrow’s business leaders, the founding members of BS4CL recognize their role in driving and accelerating business activities towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Their goal is to collaborate on research to identify and shape best practices, and work across industries to accelerate the business community’s response to climate change. Collectively they will raise awareness of the urgency for climate change mitigation and adaptation, seeking to have an impact through joint outreach to all eight alumni communities.
Uniting for the Planet’s Future
As a first step, academics from the eight founding schools worked together to produce a BS4CL climate leadership toolkit, which was released at COP26 in Glasgow on 10 November.
“As educators and researchers as well as stewards of powerful alumni bodies, we need to work together to protect humanity. The lessons in the toolkit will arm executives with the skills and questions to take bold action not only to mitigate the effects of climate change but also to understand the business risks and seize the opportunities ahead."
“HEC Paris is fully committed to this new alliance and works daily to create, with the seven other leading business schools, a more prosperous, fairer and more sustainable society.” said the HEC Paris Dean, Eloïc Peyrache.
As attention around the world turns to COP26, the group also held a series of webinars to showcase the content of the toolkit, where each session had participants from multiple schools. The webinars and the toolkit are accessible at BS4CL.org.
This initial collaboration focuses on eight topics:
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Climate Change and Inequality (INSEAD)
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Decarbonizing Business (HEC Paris)
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Global Strategy in a World Transformed: business strategy and geopolitics (IESE Business School)
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Technology and Innovation as a Climate Change Solution (IE Business School)
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Business Transformation and Climate Change ( IMD
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Risk management and the green energy transition (Oxford Saïd)
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Climate change and nature, what business needs to know (Cambridge Judge)
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Climate Standards and Enterprise Value (London Business School)
"The multilateral negotiations between states at COP26 are crucial, but the mobilization of businesses and the civil society alongside all citizens is also essential to get out of the carbon economy. HEC Paris is committed to this goal with its international academic partners in BS4CL. We can make a difference through our work on decarbonization strategies and the circular economy, and through the training of all our students in environmental and social issues, which are inseparable," explains François Collin, Director of the ecological transition at HEC Paris.
HEC via BS4CL at COP26
The BS4CL toolkit was launched on 10 November at the Sustainable Innovation Forum hosted by Climate Action on the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) at the UN Climate Change Conference COP 26 in Glasgow, in partnership with InTent.
The group intends to continue its collaboration after COP26 by bringing together their collective faculties to share and develop new insights on the rapidly evolving and urgent climate agenda.