Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL)

 Eight leading business schools have joined together to acknowledge the climate crisis and collaborate to support business leaders who will act to address the climate emergency.  

As agents of change and the catalysts for thought leadership in tomorrow’s business leaders, the founding members of Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) recognise their role in driving and accelerating business activities towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

This panel marks the release of a BS4CL toolkit. This initial collaboration focuses on eight 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: transition to a green economy from a business perspective (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).

In a joint statement, the deans of the eight business schools said: 

“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 the one of the greatest challenges of our time--global warming, there has never been a more critical moment for collaboration between our institutions.
 

We recognise the need to initiate the search for answers, which will galvanise and promote meaningful action. BC4SL builds on the integrated climate leadership expressed across our individual curricula and faculty research, providing the means to cooperate on a long-term basis. 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. Our Post-COP26 Agenda will bring together our collective faculties to share and develop new insights on the rapidly evolving and urgent agenda.” 

Andre Hoffmann and Paul Polman, leading business leaders and advisors to these Schools, commented, “We are pleased that these excellent schools have humbly realized that climate change requires not only great individual effort, but collaboration as well. We celebrate these early steps and encourage them to do even more to drive action across their institutions and beyond.”   

In partnership with InTent.