Q3 2021-2022 Activity Update

We published two CrossRoads opinion papers on women in business, and biodiversity.

Continuing our Crossroads: Business & Society series on INSEAD Knowledge, we published two new opinion papers with faculty and alumni. Professor Zoe Kinias looked at how institutions like INSEAD are uniquely equipped to address systemic biases in Business Schools Can Help ‘Break the Bias’ for Women. Aluma, Elisa Dierickx, wrote about why businesses should care about biodiversity.

We produced two Mission to Change podcasts on making nature count in finance and creating sustainable goods and jobs from waste.

Continuing Season 2 of Mission to Change, which focused on biodiversity, we interviewed Co-Chair of the TNFD and Chair of Finance for Biodiversity, Simon Zadek, about the need to make nature count in finance. We also interviewed Cartier Women’s Initiative Fellow and 2022 graduate of the INSEAD-Cartier Impact Entrepreneurship Programme, Lorna Rutto about her journey setting up EcoPost, a company that turns waste plastic into sustainable timber. You can also read our 3 takeaways from this episode here.

We hosted spiritual leader Sadhguru to discuss the Save the Soil Movement and how business can help.

On his 100 day journey from the UK to India, Sadhguru stopped by our European campus in Fontainebleau to hold a talk on “soil, soul and success” as part of his Conscious Planet endeavour aiming to raise awareness and catalyse action on soil and ecology.

We welcomed a new sustainability quiz at the start of the MBA journey.

Complementing our full MBA curriculum review, the latest MBA cohort was quizzed on their sustainability knowledge during their first formal class, thanks to Professors Gabriel Szulanski and Felipe Monteiro. Read more about the integration of sustainability into Introduction to General Management course.

We held the INSEAD-Cartier Impact Entrepreneurship programme to help 40 female entrepreneurs scale their impact.

Hosted in our Middle East Campus, another 40 female entrepreneurs graduated from the INSEAD-Cartier Entrepreneurship programme where participants received mentorship on how to scale their business and impact.

In partnership with the Cartier Women’s Initiative, INSEAD Women in Business Club NAA UAE, Executive Director Katell Le Goulven also moderated a session on measuring and delivering on impact at the 2022 Cartier Women's Initiative World Reunion. This was attended by over 70 INSEAD alumni and participants from Cartier.

We applauded the launch of INSEAD’s Business Sustainability Executive Programme.

In line with our vision of business as a force for good, INSEAD launched a new Executive Education programme. Directed by Professors Atalay Atasu and Karel Cool, the program is designed to ensure business leaders understand the importance and ways of integrating sustainability into business.

This programme complements recent announcements such as the creation of the Business Schools for Climate Leadership partnership, and our pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 67%.

We explored on how to lead radical change for a green economy, how to integrate DEI in the firm, and how to support humanitarian aid to Ukraine, with our alumni.

In a recent webinar, Professors Theodoros Evgeniou and Claudia Zeisberger, explored insights on how to develop and deploy responsible AI and tech in early-stage companies. Watch the webinar here.

We moderated 3 panels on sustainability with Alumni at the Alumni Forum in New York and Visionary Summit in London.

We co-sponsored and moderated a webinar on Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine: Challenges and Breakthroughs. Professor Luk Van Wassenhove and NGO leaders discussed the best way individuals can help the fastest growing refugee crisis in recent history.

We partnered with the Stewardship Asia Center to launch the Steward Leadership Awards 2022.

Hoffmann Institute Asia Director, Dr.Vinika Rao along with Professor Narayan Pant participated in a panel during the Stewardship Asia Roundtable 2022 on collectively creating a better future.

We partnered with Le Club Les Echos Engagement Responsable to explore the potential of Green Hydrogen.

Is green hydrogen the future? How do we scale up green hydrogen production? This was the subject of the latest Le Club Les Echos Engagement Responsible debate. Watch the debate and hear MBA Student Julie Guth ask a question to the panellists.

We collaborated with our Operations & Campus Services to host INSEAD first Earth Week across all campuses.

To coincide with World Water Day and Earth Hour, INSEAD’s first Earth Week was a five-day event which consisted of on-campus activities and conversations to share knowledge on topics related to our planet. We wore green, turned off lights off and held conversations about the future of sustainable eating and biodiversity loss and threatened ecosystems. Read a detailed write up here.

We celebrated an EcoVadis’ Gold Medal for INSEAD’s efforts on Sustainability!

INSEAD’s latest assessment by the world’s leading and most trusted provider of business sustainability evaluations resulted in a Gold Medal for INSEAD. With an overall score of 69 out of 100, this puts us among the top 5% of all organizations, and the top 3% of all higher education institutions. To find out more about sustainability at INSEAD read our latest Sustainability Report, covering academic years 2018/2019 through 2019/2020.

Looking ahead, you are all warmly invited to join us at ChangeNOW in Paris for our Future of Gender at Work Forum on May 21^st.

In collaboration with the INSEAD Gender Initiative and Cartier Women's Initiative, we will be hosting the “Gender and the Future of Work” Forum at ChangeNOW. This 3-hour long hybrid interactive programme will offer specific interventions to make participating organizations more gender-inclusive in the aftermath of the COVID-19 disruption.

Finally, the Hoffmann Institute will be at the SDG tent in Davos where faculty will lead conversations on circularity for net zero, the future of business education and how family business can be a force for good.

Thank you for joining us on this journey to make sustainability everybody’s business. See you for the next quarter!

Join us online or physically attend these events. Stay tuned on our social media and website for more information.