A mission-driven company since 2021, emlyon business school confirms its social and environmental commitment in each of its initiatives, by articulating its 2023 intake around the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and more specifically, around the SDG #16, “Peace, justice and strong institutions” as a common thread for this new academic year.

Thus, students will be able to attend three inaugural conferences about "promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”:

  • Laurent Berger, former General Secretary of the CFDT union federation, and former President of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Wednesday September 03rd. His conference will be about “Work and Unionism”.
  • Philippe Zaouati, Founder and CEO of Mirova, an international asset management company specializing in sustainable investment & mission-driven company, Thursday, September 28th. His conference will be about "Finance for social and environmental justice".
  • Pierre-Yves Gomez, Economist, Doctor in Management and Professor Emeritus at emlyon business school, Friday, September 29th. His conference will be about “Justice”.

For this 2023 intake, 100% of the courses were revised against the 17 UN's SDGs according to the method designed by emlyon, “SDGs Inside” (Sustainable Development Goals Inside). Developed in 2020, the “SDGs inside” method has allowed to revisit our entire program offer, with profound modifications of our learning goals, program models and courses. It consists in determining an analytical framework and placing each teaching on a reference scale of 31 CSR competences, weighted against the 17 specific goals, to then push the whole of our teachings towards a complete and global answer to these issues. This allowed us to identify the competences already taught and those to be introduced or reinforced in the School's teachings.

Additionally, emlyon further conducts its Responsible Commitment track created in 2016 as part of the Grande École Program. The purpose of this initiative is to train students to social and environmental issues, to turn them into enlightened actors of tomorrow's challenges. This way, they can commit to “field” missions with social or environmental impact within one of our 40 partner associations. This experience learning track was created in 2016, and is one of its kind within the world of business schools as it is one of the graduation requirements of the Grande École Program. Students from the Grande Ecole Program are thereby requested to commit as a volunteer in an association for 50 hours, in a mission with social and/or environmental impact.

Lastly, emlyon business school reinforces its provisions in favor of inclusion inclusion and diversity:

  • With the “Inclusion Thursdays”, in partnership with the APICIL Group. Every week, thanks to virtual reality, students will be able to put themselves in the shoes of disabled people, or people faced with stalking, sexism or assaults in order to better understand the various shapes of discriminations.
  • With the trEMplin scheme initiated in 2022. This multi-faceted (administrative, financial, coaching, mentoring) support scheme promotes inclusion and success for students complying with the School's social criteria, from integration to graduation.
  • With its action plan on prevention, raising awareness and fight against LGBTphobia following the signing off of its LGBT+ Commitment Charter with L'Autre Cercle. The School thereby acts to provide a caring and safe working and studying environment for students and staff members.
Isabelle Huault, Présidente du Directoire et Directrice générale d’emlyon business school

For this 2023 intake, emlyon business school, now a mission-driven company, stands strong in its social and environmental commitment in all aspects of its actions. We want to become a global business university combining both academic excellence and dedication to tackling social and environmental issues. Our ambition is to make sure that the socio-ecological questions are addressed in their entirety and not as a side-subject, when the very habitability of our planet is at stake. The emlyon community is committed at all levels to build today a more responsible society.

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About emlyon business school:

Founded in 1872 by the Lyon CCI, emlyon business school has an enrollment of 9,050 students of 125 nationalities over 6 campuses worldwide (Lyon-Ecully, Saint-Etienne, Shanghai, Paris, Bhubaneswar and Mumbai). emlyon draws on a Faculty of 166 international professors and researchers, and a network of 200 global academic partners, to provide learning tracks of excellence opened to the world. emlyon runs a community of 41,700 alumni spread out in 130 countries. As a Société à Mission since July 2021, emlyon's raison d'être consists in: “providing life-long training and support to meaningful individuals able to transform organizations, for a fairer society, with more solidarity and respect for the planet.” In its early makers pedagogy, action and reflection are closely intertwined. Skill hybridization and social responsibility are at the heart of its training programs, where the best of both socio-economic and academic worlds meet. www.em-lyon.com

Press contacts:

KBZ Corporate for emlyon : Laurence Martin - lmartin@kbzcorporate.com - 06 47 69 85 99
Karine Zimeray - kzimeray@kbzcorporate.com - 06 09 15 65 14