Business Schools teach leaders a climate change lesson

Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) is a new alliance of academic thought leaders collaborating to help business leaders address the climate crisis.

BS4CL comprises founding members Oxford Saïd Business School, Cambridge Judge Business School, HEC Paris, IE Business School, IESE Business School, INSEAD, International Institute for Management Development, and London Business School. 

These schools recognise that they produce thousands of future business leaders each year and can play an active role in driving businesses to tackle climate change and reach goals set out in the Paris Agreement and at COP26 in Glasgow.

They will work together on research to identify and shape best practices and work to accelerate the business community’s response to climate change – raising awareness of the urgency required to avert a global environmental crisis.

The schools have produced a BS4CL climate leadership toolkit, released at COP26, as well as a series of webinars, all available free at BS4CL.org. 

Business schools focus on key climate issues

The eight schools will initially focus on eight key topics:

• Climate Change and Inequality (INSEAD)
• Decarbonising Business (HEC Paris)
• Global Strategy in a World Transformed: business strategy and geopolitics (IESE Business School)
• Technology and Innovation as a Climate Change Solution (IE Business School)
• Business Transformation and Climate Change (The International Institute for Management Development)
• Risk management and the green energy transition (Oxford Saïd)
• Climate change and nature, what business needs to know (Cambridge Judge)
• Climate Standards and Enterprise Value (London Business School)

“The crises presented by the global pandemic have highlighted the important role academic institutions must play in providing leadership in times of emergency. Now, as we face one of the greatest challenges of our time--global warming, there has never been a more critical moment for collaboration between our institutions,” the schools said in a joint statement.

“We recognise the need to initiate the search for answers, which will galvanise and promote meaningful action. We mean to build the foundations with which businesses can lead global action to collaborate across sectors to limit climate change and to promote meaningful and visible progress.”