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Launched in February 2023, the “Transition 2026” initiative aims to achieve 100% of IÉSEG’s students, staff and faculty having the knowledge, skills and abilities to meet today’s global challenges.

Transition 2026 is not just a student and staff training program on sustainability; it goes much further. The program also includes a comprehensive review of education across all programs, and the implementation of CSR action plans at all levels of the School.

On Thursday, March 13, IÉSEG’s Management Board concluded its 3rd half-day dedicated to presenting all roadmaps, drafted by the 10 Academic and all Administrative Departments of the School. These presentations officially conclude phase 1 of the “Transition 2026” initiative.

According to Maria CASTILLO, Social and Environmental Impact Director at IÉSEG, “the presentation of all these roadmaps to the Management Board is a real achievement, beautifully concluding phase 1 of our Transition 2026 initiative launched two years ago. This initiative is more than just training our teams: it’s a real engagement from all the School’s teams and stakeholders!“

She also noted, “we first built a training program with 5 mandatory modules shared by all administrative and academic teams. These modules aimed to transmit or update essential knowledge on sustainability, including sustainable development, diversity, interculturality… Each Academic or Administrative Department then had a specific 6th module to reflect on the best ways to implement sustainability concretely in their daily work. Finally, the 7th module involved each Academic and Administrative Department writing its CSR roadmap. These roadmaps were presented to us and challenged by the Management Board before implementation.“

The outcome of phase 1 of Transition 2026 is very positive: 85% of administrative teams and 82% of teaching staff have participated in these training sessions. Now, all newly recruited School staff since the launch of the first sessions in 2023 will be brought closer to achieving the goal of 100% of employees trained in sustainability.

Thus, all Departments presented their 3-year roadmaps to the Management Board in early March, with some already beginning to implement them in a very concrete manner.

In practical terms, Academic Department will use these roadmaps to develop a comprehensive and ambitious sustainability skills path for all IÉSEG students, from their first day at the School to graduation (and even beyond, through the School’s tailored continuing education offerings). Key competencies have been identified by each department, detailing how each course and program will be reviewed and redesigned as needed to teach these competencies in a cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary manner. Sustainability Ambassadors have been appointed within each Department to ensure progress and consistency of actions.

For Administrative Departments, the focus is on defining how to integrate a sustainable approach into every activity to have a positive impact on society and the world around us.

“On behalf of the School’s Management Board, I am truly proud of the active participation of all our teams over the past 2 years: IÉSEG has invested significantly in time and budget to develop the Transition 2026 initiative, demonstrating the importance the School places on sustainability and its environmental and societal impact. I am delighted to see all teams taking responsibility for their sustainability goals by writing their own roadmap following this ambitious training program. They are proactive in implementing sustainable measures, certainly more ambitious than what we would have decided ourselves. These roadmaps are built around concrete actions, with three-year targets, key performance indicators, and clearly identified project leaders. They also include a realistic implementation schedule based on a fair assessment of the impact and efforts of each proposed project, to prioritize high-impact projects. Evolution of our programs and the expected skills of students, reduction of our digital footprint, carbon footprint of our operations, responsible purchasing, employee well-being, consideration of diversity, disability, and social inclusion, signing of new business partnerships considering sustainability criteria… Thus, thanks to the commitment of all Departments, we have covered 100% of IÉSEG activities to maximize our impact,” explains Caroline ROUSSEL, Dean of IÉSEG.

The Department of Social and Environmental Impact played a major role in the success of phase 1 of the “Transition 2026” initiative, supporting all departments daily, meeting them regularly, advising them on drafting their roadmap, and challenging their ambitions and objectives.

Now begins phase 2 of Transition 2026: the Department of Social and Environmental Impact will centralize all roadmaps and make them available to all IÉSEG employees. Above all, it will compile all objectives and monitoring indicators to integrate them into the School’s Impact strategy. It will also ensure each year that all departments effectively implement the actions they committed to, before measuring their actual impact.