Sustainability Report 2021

MBA

Innovative Teaching

Across its degree programs, open, and custom-enrollment programs, IMD integrates sustainability frameworks, cases, and action learning. Participants learn how sustainable innovation, technology, and finance can enable sustainable business transformation. They also build an understanding and awareness of the new leadership capabilities needed to create value for both business and society.

MBA

The MBA degree program aims to develop responsible leaders. Sustainability forms a required part of the curriculum through core courses, electives, case studies, Innovation Week, working with startups, and International Consulting Projects.

Business and Society

All MBA participants take the required Business and Society: Corporate Sustainability course which equips leaders of tomorrow to combine high performance with positive societal impact. Guest speakers include Marco Lambertini, Director General for the WWF; Yves Daccord, former Director General of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC); and leaders of businesses that champion sustainability, such as Danfoss CEO Kim Fausing, Royal DSM Co-CEO Geraldine Matchett, and Schneider Electric Executive Vice President Industrial Automation Barbara Frei-Spreiter.

A Primer on Impact Investment and Sustainable Finance

In this elective, MBA students learn how impact investment can mobilize private capital to help fill the development-financing gap and address pressing global challenges. Participants develop a broad understanding of the nuances involved when integrating ESG criteria in asset managers’ portfolio decisions.

A Primer on Impact Investment and Sustainable Finance

Reforming Marketing for a Sustainable Future

The objective of this course is to review current marketing practices and to systematically investigate possible avenues to develop new, or alter, practices by empowering customers and developing new sustainable products, services, and business models.

Innovation Week

MBA participants faced a unique week-long challenge exploring how innovation can drive large companies to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). During Innovation Week, MBA teams each focused on how a company could create impact for one SDG in a specific region. Companies selected by the MBA teams included: Volkswagen, Amazon, Starbucks, Maersk, Netflix, Alibaba, and Uniqlo.

Innovation Week

Startup projects

As part of the entrepreneurship stream, MBA participants worked on advising the leadership teams of startups.

In 2021, 12 out of the 20 project teams analyzed and developed business plans related to sustainability. The plans that MBAs contributed to included:

  • closing the loop on PET plastic recycling
  • empowering smallholders in West Africa
  • rethinking textile to build a new sustainable brand
  • grasshopper breeding techniques to convert agricultural waste into high-quality proteins
  • helping energy transition actors to plan and design efficient ways to heat, cool and electrify buildings

Teaching

Startup projects enable MBAs to put their learning into practice.

Teaching

MBAs support startups across a range of industries, from renewable energy to biotech.

International Consulting Projects

The International Consulting Projects (ICPs) provide MBA participants with hands-on experience developing business solutions for global challenges. Teams of five MBAs coached by a faculty member spend eight weeks working on a strategic challenge faced by a company.

The ICP projects spanned a wide range of industries including energy, engineering, software, chemicals, non-profit, food, trading, insurance, healthcare, and automation.

For example, one team travelled to Peru to work with the Maras community to help them improve their value chain and capture a fair value for their high-quality salt. In Khartoum, a team immersed themselves with CTC Group to help them maintain their position as the leader in Sudan’s agricultural sector as the country opens to investment. In Switzerland, another group assessed the future of mobility for a regional energy company. In the UK, an MBA team consulted a biodiversity NGO.

Click here to read more stories about this year’s ICPs on the MBA blog.

Out of 19 projects in 2021, 12 were directly related to sustainability (63%), double the number the previous year.

MBA Plans Sustainable Transformation

Starting in 2022, sustainability will be woven into the entire MBA curriculum at IMD in a major revamp in time for the program’s 50th anniversary. “Our vision is to develop leaders who transform organizations and contribute to society,” said Omar Toulan, the new Dean of the MBA. “Traditionally, we’ve been more focused on transforming organizations. But you can’t ignore the impact you have on society. We want to make sure we’re balancing both sides of the equation; sustainability is at the center of that.”

To help revamp the MBA, IMD has developed a strategic partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a CEO-led organization of over 200 leading companies.

“The goal is not to become the next green MBA, where people only study at IMD if they want to work in the sustainability department of a company,” says Toulan. “The goal is to give people the skills all managers will need in the future when it comes to sustainability.”

10 Skills for the Future

To redesign the program, in 2021, the MBA team completed an audit of the curriculum to identify 10 key skills that all MBA graduates need to tackle sustainability issues upon graduation. Each skill will be integrated into the program’s framework and core courses, and cover four themes: climate and nature, equity and society, governance, and pandemic recovery.

10 Skills for the Future