CEMS partnership kick-off
On Tuesday 14 March 2017, NHH hosted a kick-off seminar for the new CEMS Strategic Partnership project “Sustainable Business Models”. The project is funded by Erasmus+ for the next two years.
The project is a collaboration between NHH and CEMS academic partners Copenhagen Business School, Corvinus University of Budapest and ESADE Business School.
Rector Frøystein Gjesdal welcomed over 100 students and faculty members to the “Future of Sustainable Business” and emphasized the importance of sustainability in business school teaching and of international collaborations in the school’s networks.
Following a short presentation about the project, NHH project leader and Associate Professor Lars Jacob Tynes Pederson introduced sustainability experts from project partner schools to present their perspectives on the models that could be used by business in future.
David Murillo Bonvehi from ESADE Business School took a global and geopolitical perspective on the sustainability problem, and shed light on how future societal and technological developments are likely to shape business practices. Laszlo Zsolnai from Corvinus University of Budapest presented insights from the Future Earth research project and discussed the implications of the increasing pressure on planetary boundaries for how companies can operate. Esben Rahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen from Copenhagen Business School used the case of the fashion industry to look closely at a specific type of company, and discuss what it will take to arrive at a sustainable fashion industry.
Lars Jacob Pedersen and fellow local expert colleague Associate Professor Sveinung Jørgensen, finally presented their perspective and explained the seven characteristics of more sustainable business models, which make up their RESTART framework.
The kick-off seminar followed the inaugural planning meeting for the CEMS Strategic Partnership project held earlier in the day. During the meeting the sustainability experts discussed the contributions to be made by each of the partner schools and future collaboration to meet the aims for the project. The collaboration will result in an open-access course package of online videos on sustainable business which will be made available for use within the CEMS and other international networks. The web portal for the project will be launched soon.