EDHEC organises the second edition of the School’s Sustainability Week
EDHEC Business School hosted the second edition of its Sustainability Week on the Paris, Nice and Lille campuses from 20 to 24 January 2025. Organised in collaboration with the School’s student associations (Develop EDHEC Social Business, OJO, Sunset, EDHEC North Race, ACE BBA, Talon Aiguille, L’Ombre et la Plume, etc.), the week familiarised EDHEC staff and students with societal and environmental issues using a wide variety of initiatives (recruitment fair devoted to ESG positions, conferences led by EDHEC professors-researchers, and workshops to raise awareness of climate change and sexual & gender-based violence (SGBV), etc.).
During the Sustainability Week, EDHEC’s Diversity & Inclusion Chair ran two workshops focused on the fight against different forms of violence. The first, “Identifying and Understanding the mechanisms of violence within couples”, run for employees and students, provided avenues for understanding and acting against conjugal violence. The second, “SGBV: act and stop it!”, which is mandatory for all new EDHEC students, was also offered to the School’s employees across the three campuses. The objectives were to enable participants to identify forms of sexist and sexual violence, to act in a suitable manner to prevent such violence from happening and to be capable of assisting third persons in the event that it does occur.
The Diversity & Inclusion Chair also launched its first cycle of film-debates designed to explore social themes and foster open and inclusive dialogue. The first film selected was “Rafiki”. Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, the full-length feature portrays a love story between two young women in Kenya. The screening was followed by a debate between the participants, the members of the Chair and volunteers from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais section of the SOS Homophobie association.
Multiple formats to raise awareness of sustainable development
EDHEC staff and students also took part in several conferences on key subjects. Clara Millard-Dereudre (EDHEC 1994), lecturer on the MSc in Global & Sustainable Business, gave a conference in Lille on incorporating sustainable development principles into marketing. In Nice, Alexia Barrier, founder of the 4MyPlanet NGO, came on campus to present the two objectives of her project, namely to raise awareness of the need to protect the seas and nature, while also collecting scientific data to assist research on the seas. On the Paris campus, the two founders of the Linka start-up, Alina Zubareva (EDHEC 2013) and Antoine Currat (EDHEC 2011), led a conference focused on “eco-emotions” and ecological engagement under the title “And me in the face of the environmental crisis: fear, impotence, anger, hope… what to do with my emotions?”.
Lastly, the collective spaces on EDHEC’s campuses were also the scene of numerous events. One of them, an alumni forum, saw EDHEC alumni now working in sustainable finance and impact venture capital discuss their experience and engagements with students. A forum devoted to responsible entrepreneurship also showcased companies and start-ups originating from the Lille European Metropole (MEL) and Paris, and which are active in the areas of inclusion and reinsertion, sustainable food, educating on environmental issues or ethical fashion. In addition, the Lille campus featured various tasting stands (insects, organic and alcohol-free wines & spirits,) and an educational event organised by the Les Alchimistes company designed to raise awareness of compost. Students were also offered a guided visit with the LPO bird protection society that enabled them to discover the rich animal and plant life present on the grounds of the Lille campus.
To find out more:
During Sutainability Week, Nicolas Schneider, Senior Research Engineer - Macroeconomist (EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute) gave a talk entitled: « Climate information granularity and projections of physical risk impacts on economic outputs ».
Many professors and researchers at EDHEC Business School conduct research into social, societal and environmental issues. Dozens of articles and interviews on these subjects are available on EDHEC Vox (magazine and platform):
https://www.edhec.edu/fr/recherche-et-faculte/edhec-vox/diversity-inclusion
https://www.edhec.edu/fr/recherche-et-faculte/edhec-vox/sustainable-finance
https://www.edhec.edu/fr/recherche-et-faculte/edhec-vox/new-consumption-modes
https://www.edhec.edu/fr/recherche-et-faculte/edhec-vox/sustainability-and-ethics
