Publication SIP report PRME
Excelia vient de publier le 1er Rapport de Progrès de l’Ecole dans le cadre de l’engagement du Groupe au sein du Global Compact (ONU) relatif à la promotion des Principes du Management Responsable en matière d’Education.
Letter from the Director
Sustainable development is a core component of the identity of the city of La Rochelle. Thanks to the engagement of Michel Crépeau, the visionary Mayor of La Rochelle from 1971 to 1999, who provided the driving force to co-ordinate, promote, and encourage all stakeholders in sustainable development initiatives, sustainability has been incorporated into the economic development model central to the political agenda and the long-term plan of the city. City initiatives – including the first public bicycle sharing system in 1976 ( the yellow bikes), the introduction of an electric car scheme, the Yelo multimodal transport offer – constitute a local knowledge base which is exploited, promoted, and shared nationally and internationally.
As for the city of La Rochelle, sustainability is a core and central part of the School’s strategy. The School’s mission makes an explicit commitment to CSR and Sustainability and actively seeks to drive practice by engaging:
- faculty across disciplinary boundaries to investigate and disseminate their findings in Sustainability to the academic and corporate world, placing them in a dominant position on thought and practice leadership;
- students to participate in « real world » CSR projects that span issues, disciplines, and skill sets.
Since 1999 and the creation of the first Master’s programmes in Sustainable development, the School has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to CSR and responsible management and has taken a proactive role. It has recognized the need to reflect on management practices and promote responsible business education, both in teaching and research. Ethics and CSR are central to the School’s vision and constitute one of the underlying principles of its academic framework. These are also central themes –as stand-alone courses, as themes embedded across the c business courses and as learning experiences outside of the classroom – of the school’s core curricula in the undergraduate and graduate degree programmes.
By becoming a signatory to PRME 2012, the School initiated an explicit framework for its commitment the Sustainability and this has enabled the development of new and significant initiatives:
- The creation of the Institute for Sustainability through Innovation (Institut de la Responsabilité Sociale par l’Innovation – IRSI) in 2012 to provide the infrastructure and the support the School’s commitment to Sustainability in all areas of its mission – teaching, learning, research and outreach (see page 26)
- The use of ISO 26000 directives as the central pivot to assist the School in its efforts to operate in the socially responsible manner. The initial phase has focused on raising awareness within the School, developing consensus on what the standards mean, and guidance in identifying the issues the School will need to address. (see page 18)
- The pursuit of dialogue with stakeholders and the development of partnerships within the academic and corporate arenas to position the School as a reference and driver for knowledge and practice development in Sustainability. (see page 32)
- The deployment of the Humacité service learning mission as the hallmarks and cornerstones of the School’s approach educating responsible managers. This credit-bearing humanitarian, social or civic mission in France or overseas is a mandatory graduation requirement for all the programmes in the School and 2014 marked the 2000th project enabling the School to develop and sustain partnerships with local associations, community partners and NGOs and to disseminate information and best practices relevant to community-campus partnerships.
We are only at the beginning of a very long journey and we must gradually build our approach to social responsibility into our overall continuous improvement framework. Our challenge is to establish a cooperative dialogue with our major stakeholders, particularly our local institutional and corporate network, to be recognised by them and to innovate in developing and delivering Sustainability practices with local, national and international partners.
As educators, we are responsible for showing our students that we apply and promote these principles, simply and pragmatically. Our graduates’ active commitment to sustainability is the key to cultivating and disseminating CSR, both in the business world and in the wider community.
In the strategic objectives for 2014-2016, we have identified 3 key CSR and Sustainability objectives:
- creating a shared value through our ISO 26000 Sustainability policy
- establishing processes to govern and evaluate our practices, progressing from a series of “events” to a strategic process
- valorize our processes and outcomes, both within the school and within the wider community, in support of the economic development of our region
The aim of this report is to demonstrate what we have achieved so far, to identify our future objectives and to renew our commitment, by providing the relevant resources, to this journey.It will be disseminated to all stakeholders, both within the School and within the business community.
The report is divided into three parts: the first part is a general introduction to Excelia Business School and the context in which it has developed its sustainability strategy. The second part of the report describes our major continuous improvement achievements in implementing responsible management education according to the six principles of PRME: purpose, values, method, research, partnership and dialogue. The final part describes our future objectives.
Daniel PEYRON
Director General
Excelia Business School