New insights on tackling climate change

Europe’s leading business schools are together launching a second series of webinars that will give business leaders across the world knowledge and guidance to help stop climate change.

Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL), a unique partnership between eight of Europe’s leading business schools which was created to help present-day and future business leaders combat the climate crisis facing the planet, has launched the second series of the BS4CL webinar series.

The BS4CL schools originally came together to launch their alliance at COP26 in Glasgow last year. The founding members are: London Business School; Cambridge Judge Business School; HEC Paris; IE Business School; IESE Business School; the International Institute for Management Development (IMD); INSEAD and Saïd Business School (University of Oxford).

BS4CL – launching another series of webinars

COP26 witnessed an unprecedented number of net zero pledges, and BS4CL came together to provide valuable insights on what business can do to drive positive change.

As industries and countries all work to turn these pledges into action, the context is rapidly changing. A war in Ukraine, new, urgent evidence from the IPCC concerning the speed of global warming, and the need to address the broader issues of environmental degradation, all of these events are coming together to impel faster action.

On May 25, eight of Europe’s leading business schools will be launching a second series of BS4CL webinars. This second series aims to use the lens of informed by academic insights and practitioner experience to explore how to help accelerate action in order to address climate change.

The upcoming webinars are listed below, with a notable reference, important to our LBS community, of Dr. Ioannis Ioannou’s participation in ‘COP15 (Biodiversity) and what it means for business and climate leadership’. This webinar is taking place on July 11 this year.

Webinar 1	Geopolitics & Energy Transition in Europe	IESE, HEC	Jean-Michel Gauthier (HEC); Layal Nabhan, HEC. Register here	25 May, 17:00 CET
Webinar 2	Climate & Entrepreneurship	INSEAD, IE	Javier Manzanares (IE); Goulnara Aguiar (INSEAD) Registration link yet to be released	8 June, 15:00 CET
Webinar 3	Latest IPCC report and climate leadership	IMD, Cambridge	Karl Schmedders, (IMD); Kamiar Mohaddes (Cambridge) Registration link yet to be released	17 June, 11:00 CET
Webinar 4	COP15 (Biodiversity) and what it means for business and climate leadership	Oxford Said, INSEAD, LBS	Ioannis Ioannou (LBS); Elisa Dierickx (SYSTEMIQ); Richard Barker (Oxford Saïd) Registration link yet to be released	11 July, 15:00-16:00 CET

COP15 Biodiversity and what it means for business and climate leadership

We all know of the impacts of climate change through reports made by the global media community. From longer periods of drought, to more and fiercer storms, heat waves and wildfires, the often-visceral threats presented by global warming have been given stark and dreadful illustration by, variously, bushfires in southern California and across Australia, to widespread losses in the extent of snow and ice in the Conger ice shelf.

These threats are also directly linked to a second major challenge: biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. Biodiversity, the unique, intricate web of natural life on our planet, maintains balance and supports human existence. Human-induced changes to ecosystems, and the multiple extinction of species, has been more rapid in the past 50 years than at any time in human history.

It has long been acknowledged that tackling the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change will require coordinated, global efforts, combined with local actions, in order to address both issues. These matters were discussed at the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) on the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2021, with another session being held in the third quarter of 2022. On 11 July (15:00 - 16:00 CET), LBS’ Dr. Ioannis Ioannou, Dr. Elisa Dierickx (INSEAD alumna) associate at SYSTEMIQ Ltd., and Professor Richard Barker of Oxford Saïd, will deliberate what biodiversity means for the global business community.

By taking early steps to secure biodiversity, and seize opportunities that enable companies to remain at the forefront of their sector, companies can decrease costs and reduce inputs to counter biodiversity degradation through the implementation of conservation initiatives.

Note: a link to this upcoming webinar will be published on this site and on the BS4CL website.

About the Wheeler Institute for Business and Development

The School’s Wheeler Institute for Business and Development (Wheeler Institute) leads London Business School’s engagement with BS4CL. The Wheeler Institute offers world-leading research to help amplify the role of business in tackling some of the hardest challenges in development. By identifying big challenges and applying business insights to help solve these challenges, the Wheeler Institute forges communities of learning and practice to implement large-scale and enduring change. Additionally, the Wheeler Institute creates positive change through three mutually reinforcing activities that address the following development challenges: lives, livelihoods and environments.

London Business School joint statement made at the launch of BS4CL

In a joint statement made in November 2021, the deans of the eight business schools said:

“The crises presented by the global pandemic have highlighted the important role academic institutions must play in providing leadership in times of emergency. Now, as we face one of the greatest challenges of our time - global warming - there has never been a more critical moment for collaboration between our institutions.

“We recognise the need to initiate the search for answers, which will galvanise and promote meaningful action. BC4SL builds on the integrated climate leadership expressed across our individual curricula and faculty research, providing the means to cooperate on a long-term basis. We mean to build the foundations with which businesses can lead global action to collaborate across sectors to limit climate change and to promote meaningful and visible progress. Our Post-COP26 Agenda will bring together our collective faculties to share and develop new insights on the rapidly evolving and urgent agenda.”

The Dean of London Business School, François Ortalo-Magné, said: “Effective collaboration across all relevant parties is critical. Meeting the targets set by the United Nations and the Paris Climate Agreement hinges upon the impact of our collective contribution. The union of the eight European business schools adds academic perspective and business insights to the conversation on the role of business organisations in repairing our planet and saving lives. I look forward to more business schools joining the effort.”