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IÉSEG wins the Financial Times Responsible Business Education Awards on the category ‘Best business school demonstrating system-wide responsible business principles integrated throughout teaching, research, operations, and student outcomes’.
The School is also selected in the highly commended institutions on the category ‘Best responsible teaching resources: innovative materials with a financial sustainability focus’ for its Transition 2026 initiative.

These Responsible Business Education Awards recognize IÉSEG’s strong and systemic engagement on social and environmental impact topics at all levels of the organization and in all its activities, and the commitment of all the staff, students, alumni, and other stakeholders in driving change in the organization.

“Being the winner of the ‘Best Business School’ Award and in the highly commended institutions of the ‘Best Responsible Teaching Resources’ Award is great recognition of the effort done by every member of IÉSEG to better integrate social and environmental impact into everything we do. Transforming IÉSEG to ensure we prepare our students to be responsible changemakers and help drive sustainable change in organizations, while ensuring that we, as an organization, contributes positively to society, is a challenging but exciting process. We are moving in the right direction, but we still have a lot to do! These Financial Times Responsible Business Education Awards are a big motivation to continue working hard in the next months and years!”, comment Caroline ROUSSEL, Dean of IÉSEG, and Maria CASTILLO, Social and Environmental Impact Director at IÉSEG.

The Transition 2026 program, launched in 2022, is a key driver of transformation of IÉSEG’s activities. This program focuses on training 100% of its staff and academics to better integrate environmental and social concerns into courses, programs, and all operational activities. The training launched in February 2023 is now entering a decisive phase where all academic departments and services, supported by the Social and Environmental Impact Direction, will create their roadmaps and establish their objectives and indicators. In addition, throughout the past year, a dedicated team has been working on redesigning the content of the core sustainability courses to ensure they are fully up to date with the current context. Also, all the students in the Master Cycle of the Grande École Program now take the Task by Sulitest evaluation.

The Transition 2026 program also looks at the impact of IÉSEG’s operations in its ecosystem. A Climate Action Plan sets ambitious objectives for the School, including reduction on emissions linked to students’ international mobility. The implementation of the Climate Action Plan has resulted as of now in a 18% reduction of emissions compared to 2019.

The commitment towards social and environmental topics is also reflected in IÉSEG’s research with 2 dedicated chairs (Sustainability for Business and Society in partnership with B-Lab and Colombus Consulting, and the CFO and Sustainable Transformation Chair in partnership with the National Association of Finance and Management Control Director). In addition, 4 centers include social and environmental considerations into their research: ICOR (business model transformation, social enterprises, activism, role of managers, refugees, etc); ICIE (Diversity and Inclusion, and stigma); IRisk (climate risk and decision-making under uncertainty) and IFlame (migration and education).

Finally, these Awards recognize the important engagement of students and alumni. Initiatives like the Responsible Leaders program, the ICOR thesis award and the Sustainability Certificate promote student engagement. The close collaboration with the alumni club “IÉSEG for Change” has also been key in the redesign of courses, the ambitions set by the School in its Climate Action Plan and in creating awareness.