Business Schools Are Rising to Sustainability: Becoming Part of the Solution

The top business schools of today have made the conscious decision of moving forward with their vision with sustainability and social responsibility as their two main core values.

How are business schools becoming part of the solution and not only leading for performance with their business programs but also well-being?

How are Business Schools Incorporating Sustainability?

To simply put it, business schools have been paying attention to the shift in student attitudes for the past decade or so.  By encouraging them to envision new ways to address urgent economic, social, and environmental issues, higher ED institutions are reformulating their programs and boosting them by incorporating important pillars such as purpose, value, method, partnership, and communication.

Transitioning awareness into knowledge can be complex especially when exposing students to solutions to problems they don’t properly understand. Topics ranging from the challenges of biodiversity to business and sustainable development are important because they make sure researchers and academics ask this question: Will our students graduate and be able to continue to grow and sustain a long-term professional life? Because future leaders should never make a decision without sustainability in mind.

It’s every business school’s duty and responsibility to show students real scenarios and provide them space for business innovation. Both MBA and MSc majors should offer future leaders and entrepreneurs the opportunity to think critically about the way that businesses and companies answer big environmental and CSR questions, especially when business campaigns are more and more based on sustainability strategies themselves. That’s why it’s important that the physical space offered by the business school also reflects its vision of sustainability.

You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?

Beyond the Curricula…

In a concern for sustainable development preparing the world of tomorrow, De Vinci Higher Education puts environmental and societal issues at the heart of its programme, research, and interactions between its students and its partner companies by:

• Training responsible managers: EMLV offers a first-year course devoted to green transitions in order to increase student awareness of the impacts of economic activities on the climate and to encourage them to consider new sustainable production and consumption models.
• Enhancing biodiversity through digital technology: De Vinci Higher Education organizes cross-disciplinary hackathon weeks throughout the year to raise student awareness of CSR, ethics, and sustainable development issues.
• Meeting the challenges of a globalized and digitalized world: EMLV is a member of the Global Compact Network and PRME, an international network of 800 management-related institutions of higher learning in more than 80 countries (with about 40 in France). The UN Global Compact label recognizes EMLV’s commitment to bring its teaching and research in line with the principles promoted by the United Nations.
• Creativity and civic engagement: A Green Week is held every year on campus with educational workshops and games that challenge students from all three schools to come up with solutions to reduce their environmental impact.

What Does the Future Hold?

New green and innovative campus (2023-2024)

With higher environmental quality and an innovative ecosystem, the new campus will allow students from all four schools of De Vinci Higher Education to learn and grow in an innovation and knowledge hybridization ecosystem thanks to the building design that promotes collaborative work, the very essence of all three schools (EMLV, ESILV, IIM) and the continuing education institute (ILV).

The campus building will incorporate bioclimatic devices to reduce energy consumption and its design guarantees overall performance meeting the strictest environmental standards.

The building was designed and built in accordance with the BDF (Ile-de-France Sustainable Building) certification approach.

As long as social issues challenge us, we trust you to make the right academic decisions and rise to the challenge.