Doctor Anicet Fangwa's work on health centers and stillbirths in the Democratic Republic of Congo could save millions of lives by better managing health practices throughout Africa. The PhD graduate from HEC Paris describes the managerial tools he's been using in remote parts of the DRC.
By Anicet Fangwa , Bertrand Quélin , Marieke Huysentruyt
“Montrennoble: Flourishing sustainable city in France” case, written by HEC Paris Professor Bertrand V. Quélin, Bouygues Chair Professor in Smart City and the Common Good and HEC graduate Isaure Fraissinet, has just been released on the Case Centre platform. The case's objective is to help participants analyze the needs of a sustainable and smart city in an encompassing manner, meeting the city’s energy and mobility needs today as well as anticipating the future.
Top-quality research and teaching are essential to understand growing inequalities which hinder the urgently needed ecological transition, to interrogate the ESG factors, and to leverage theory and the most ambitious empirical methods. To do so, HEC scholars work with public and private regulators, peers from leading European academic institutions, CEOs and administrators to develop, test, and evaluate novel strategies, policies and practices designed to tackle inequalities in their field. In this Knowledge@HEC issue, we share academic knowledge and highlight professional experiences on those topics. Find the pdf of that issue here.
Camille Putois is the CEO of Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG), a coalition of more than 40 global businesses, representing 4.4 million employees and a combined revenue of over 1 trillion USD. She discusses how this coalition strives for more inclusive practices and navigates the pros and cons of the different methods to measure progress on this crucial topic. For this, she worked with Leandro Nardi and Marieke Huysentruyt, researchers at the Inclusive Economy Center at HEC Paris.
Because of Europe’s strong social welfare tradition, the social dimension of business has an additional legitimacy and urgency here. Top-quality research and teaching have an essential role to play in understanding growing inequalities which hinder the urgently needed ecological transition, in interrogating the environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, their interplay and their promise and limitations, in leveraging theory and the most ambitious empirical methods. As a leading business school and research center in France and Europe, HEC Paris’ faculty has a responsibility in providing science-based evidence and practical tools to reinvent the business of tomorrow.
The European Commission mandated a group of experts to work on new European corporate social responsibility reporting requirements. Marieke Huysentruyt, Associate Professor of Strategy and Business Policy and Academic Director of the Inclusive Economy Center at the Society & Organizations Institute of HEC Paris, was part of a group that drafted legislation on the question of equal opportunity. She describes how her working group shaped their proposals for a wide, long-lasting impact.
By Marieke Huysentruyt
Schneider Electric (SE) is a world leader in energy management. Corporate Knights ranked it the world’s most sustainable company in 2021. Knowledge@HEC met with Gilles Vermot Desroches, Director of Corporate Citizenship and Institutional Relations since 2020. A trained engineer, he has been designing Schneider’s sustainability for the last 25 years. He discusses the company’s understanding of ESG, its strategic efforts to develop its performance, and how to measure their impact.
At present, companies understand the urgency to act in favor of the protection of the planet by reducing their carbon footprint but do not often see the business case underlying social impact. Yet businesses that fail to act on social and economic inclusion will find it harder and harder to operate. This is why it is crucial to teach new ways of building strategies to reduce inequalities and fight against poverty. Education Track, Associate Professor Bénédicte Faivre-Tavignot of HEC Paris’ Society & Organizations (S&O) Institute explains how this emerging subject is taught at all levels at HEC Paris in order to change organizational cultures from within.
Faced with rising demands from society, it is crucial that companies address their social/societal impact and the board has a key role to play. A report recently published by the ESG Club of the French Institute of Administrators brushes a fresh picture of current social expectations regarding businesses. In this report, the members of the Social/Societal working group put forward recommendations for administrators to understand these expectations and anticipate the effect of social impact on the competitiveness of companies. Bénédicte Faivre-Tavignot Associate Professor (Education Track) of Strategy and Business Policy and cofounder of the Society & Organizations Institute at HEC Paris, and also board member, is one of the report’s authors. In this interview, she comments on the risks and challenges for companies and for board members.
By Bénédicte Faivre-Tavignot
Three HEC academics joined forces with an S&P Global social specialist in ESG research (Bruce Thomson) to bring out a landmark report on the social factors covered – and not - in ESG frameworks. The report “What Gets Measured” challenges traditional coverage of the social dimension in corporate ESG frameworks and suggests ways to ensure that what gets measured “matters for businesses and the people and communities they impact”. We talk with HEC professor and co-author Marieke Huysentruyt.
By Marieke Huysentruyt , Bénédicte Faivre-Tavignot , Leandro Nardi , Bruce Thomson
