Europe's Top Business School Deans Unite to Lead Climate Transition at ChangeNOW 2025
To accelerate the climate transition, tomorrow’s leaders must be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and mindset to take action. At ChangeNOW 2025, help in Paris on April 25, 2025, the deans of Europe’s top business schools - including HEC Paris - delivered a powerful message: business schools hold unique assets to shape climate leadership, transform business through education and research, and serve as catalysts within diverse, global ecosystems.

HEC Paris, a founding member of the Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) alliance, took center stage during the session “Learn. Lead. Transform: Business Schools for Climate Leadership” at ChangeNOW 2025, the world’s largest event for planet-positive solutions. The alliance uniting eight of Europe’s top business schools, including HEC Paris, IE Business School, IESE Business School, IMD, INSEAD, LBS, Cambridge Judge Business School, and Oxford Saïd Business School, gathered to reaffirm the vital and unique role of business schools in accelerating the climate transition.
Business Schools: Science-Based and Solution-Oriented
“Business schools are uniquely positioned to drive climate action because their DNA is deeply solution-oriented,” said Eloïc Peyrache, Dean of HEC Paris. He emphasized the school’s ability to translate science into action and real-world impact. One example is HEC’s involvement in the European “Pathways2Resilience” project, which aims to develop standardized methodologies and evaluation frameworks to help policymakers and stakeholders assess the effectiveness of regional and local climate adaptation strategies.
This means connecting research to societal and business issues and turning findings into tangible resources. Beyond academic circles, business schools must share knowledge broadly.
A Multidisciplinary Response to a Systemic Challenge
David Bach, Dean of IMD, underscored the inherently multidisciplinary nature of business education—crucial when addressing systemic issues like climate change. Business schools can shape metrics, inform financial markets to price externalities more accurately, and support the transition to a more sustainable economy. He noted that sustainability is ultimately a leadership challenge. It calls for leaders who think differently, collaborate across boundaries (even with competitors), engage a wide range of stakeholders, and demonstrate remarkable resilience and purpose.
Expanding on this, INSEAD Dean Francisco Veloso highlighted the systemic power of schools to convene diverse actors, especially through their alumni networks. By mobilizing entrepreneurs, alumni, and both local and international stakeholders, business schools can amplify impact and catalyze change. The goal is not just to educate students, but to engage the broader ecosystem in this collective transformation.
From Mindsets to Curricula: Embedding Sustainability at Every Level
Lee Newman, Dean of IE Business School, stressed the importance of reshaping the mindset of future leaders. Sustainability should be integrated across all curricula, not as an add-on but as a fundamental component of business literacy. This ranges from embedding sustainability into syllabi across disciplines to launching dedicated programs and tracks.
Beware of the Hype
Still, challenges remain. Dean Peyrache cautioned against chasing trending topics, like AI, at the expense of enduring, foundational issues like climate change. He advocated for cross-disciplinary, transversal approaches that address interconnected problems. Future leaders, he emphasized, must be fluent in the languages of science, technology, AI, and climate to build bridges and mobilize action.
Beyond “Soft Skills”: Teaching Impact Skills
Dean Newman challenged the term “soft skills,” arguing for a shift to “impact skills,” a label that better reflects their importance and difficulty. These skills are anything but soft: they’re vital for mobilizing stakeholders and delivering change in complex environments. Systems thinking is another essential skill, helping future leaders make sense of the nonlinear world we now operate in.
Dean Veloso added that entrepreneurship is key to transformation. Creating new ventures and innovative models is a powerful pathway to systemic change.
Aligning Recruitment with Climate Commitments
Finally, David Bach called for courage, especially the courage to act faster. He pointed to a disconnect between the sustainability commitments voiced by CEOs and the hiring criteria of recruiters visiting campuses. Business schools must have the boldness to tell employers: the talent of tomorrow must be equipped with - and rewarded for - climate leadership capabilities.
Concrete Initiatives from the BS4CL Alliance
The BS4CL alliance is turning ambition into action through multiple initiatives:
- Open-access PhD courses: Covering topics such as the financial economics of sustainability and transformation, these courses are freely available to doctoral students worldwide and gaining global traction.
- Knowledge-sharing for current leaders: Playbooks, executive summaries, and webinars leverage the expertise of all eight institutions to support decision-makers and practitioners.
- Pedagogical resources for faculty: The alliance equips business school faculty around the world with shared teaching materials, including sustainability case studies—to build critical skills in classrooms globally.
- Alumni engagement for impact: BS4CL hosts alumni events to foster dynamic, self-organizing communities committed to climate action. This collaborative approach sends a strong signal about the collective mindset needed to address the climate emergency.
Business schools are pivotal players in the fight against climate change. They are not only educators and knowledge producers but also ecosystem conveners that foster collaboration and real-world action. The BS4CL initiative exemplifies this bold, unified approach to one of humanity’s greatest challenges.
HEC Paris at ChangeNOW: "Our mission is to spark a meaningful debate on climate and business" |