Reflections from the 2017 Global Forum for Responsible Management Education

A recap of the key outcomes from PRME’s 10th Anniversary event


By Brooke Robbins

Last week, in honor of the ten year anniversary of the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), an impressive cohort of corporate executives, United Nations delegates, business and management school professionals, and students convened at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus.

Over a series of keynote speeches, focus sessions, working groups and coffee breaks, this community of thought leaders shared ideas, collaborated on strategies, and pronounced commitments to PRME. Below are some of the ideas, tactics and pledges voiced over the course of the Forum.

Plenary Address from Jonas Haertle, Head of PRME

With Every Problem, An Opportunity

We are at a tipping point now, says PRME Steering Committee Chair Andrew Main Wilson. Over the next fifteen years, business schools and business leaders will have the chance to play a more prominent role in the business of building a better world.

As UN General Assembly President Peter Thomson aptly noted in a recorded address to Forum attendees, demand by humanity on earth’s resources is increasing at an unprecedented rate. As a species, the path we are on today is not sustainable.

“We can no longer leave it to armies, governments, politicians, and NGOs,” Wilson adds. Business leaders — and by extension, business schools — will need to pull their weight to address the pressing environmental and humanitarian issues of our time.

Introducing: PRME

The Principles for Responsible Management Education, a UN-backed initiative launched in 2007 with the aim of developing the responsible business leaders of the future, is uniquely positioned to aid in this effort — a point highlighted by the head of the initiative, Jonas Haertle.

Over the past ten years, PRME has expanded its influence, now integrated in more than 660 business and management-related institutions across 83 countries. In its first ten years, PRME signatories have successfully presented the Six Principles of responsible management education to more than 20 million students worldwide.

At the core of PRME’s vision are the 17 Global Goals presented in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. These Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cover issues not only of climate change, but also of poverty, equality, and human rights, and are now the cornerstones of PRME’s mission statement.

Paradigm Shift

Achieving these SDGs will require both bold action and new thinking. According to Deputy Secretary General of the UN Amina Mohammed, higher education institutions that have joined the PRME initiative are at the forefront of educating responsible leaders for tomorrow — leaders who understand sustainable development and who value responsible decision making.

Creating a truly sustainable future will require changing mindsets and even radically rethinking traditional ideas about the purpose and value of business.

In his address to Forum attendees, Chris Lazlo, Faculty Executive Director of the Fowler Center at Case Western Reserve University, offered a new way of thinking about PRME and the Global Goals. The PRME initiative, Lazlo says, provides a compass for businesses and business educators to evolve from today’s neoliberal paradigm to one that supports shared wellbeing on a healthy planet.

Immersed in a neoliberal context, Lazlo says, we have learned to take for granted that the primary purpose of business is to generate wealth. PRME and the Global Goals, by contrast, are helping to usher in a new paradigm focused not solely on increasing short term profits, but also on promoting long-term social and environmental wellbeing.

Responsibility Meets Success

As an advocate for the SDGs among business and management-related higher education institutions, PRME has the capacity to advance this new paradigm, and to transform the sustainability imperative for future generations.

While most sustainable development paradigms today remain focused on the pursuit of profit with a secondary effort to minimize corporate footprints, PRME provides a framework through which future leaders can actively seek new ways to generate positive change.

“We have to get rid of this dichotomy between training responsible leaders or successful, professional ones,” Lazlo says. “The leaders of the future are those who will embed fully this flourishing paradigm in ways that make economic sense.”

AIM2Flourish, an initiative of the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Case Western Reserve University designed to honor business innovations for global good, is an example of how PRME affiliates can lead the way in engaging students with the SDGs and the values that undergird them.

Katrin Muff, Business School Lausanne, addressing the plenary

Making Global Goals Local Business

While the aims of PRME and the SDGs are global in scope, careful attention must be paid to local concerns and regional networks. “Your influence is global,” says Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Vice Chair of the UN Global Compact Board. “But your biggest impact is local: student by student.”

The UN Global Compact — the sister initiative, so to speak, of the Principles for Responsible Management Education — has expanded over its 17 years of existence. But even today, with over 9,000 corporations reporting on their progress, the initiative reaches only a small fraction of the world’s businesses community.

“If we are to have an impact, we are going to need strong local networks in every country,” Moody-Stuart says. The ability to listen to individuals and communities that are impacted by corporate policies is key.

Thankfully, a number of PRME signatory schools have already taken the initiative to make this a reality.

From the implementation of mandatory non-profit projects at La Rochelle Business School in France, to a compulsory corporate citizenship program at the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in India, to the inclusion of the Six Principles in every syllabus of the CENTRUM Catolica Business School in Peru, PRME affiliates from around the world have found new ways to bring the SDGs into every classroom.

Through a variety of programs such as these, PRME schools have been providing transformative educational experiences to change the hearts and the mindsets of students all around the world.

Bringing Stated Priorities into Practice

Despite these developments, when it comes to sustainability, there remains a fundamental disconnect between stated priorities and real-life results. While more and more companies and executives are reporting a strong commitment to sustainability, environmental damage continues unfettered.

The GapFrame, a tool designed to translate and assess international progress with respect to the SDGs, brings clarity to the burning environmental and social issues of every country individually, as well as of the world at large.

“You treasure what you measure,” says Unilever CEO Paul Polman, in a video address to the 2017 PRME Global Forum. This tool offers one means of bridging this gap between micro-level concerns and macro-level outcomes.

A roundtable discussion

Focus Sessions and Roundtables: Collaboration Meets Innovation

Following the keynote speeches each morning, Forum attendees engaged in smaller roundtable discussions to expand upon their role — past, present and future — as members of the PRME community.

While conversations varied from table to table, each discussion operated within the framework of engaging one’s inner self. How can we connect our personal values to those expressed in the SDGs? More importantly, perhaps, how might we help our students to do the same?

In the afternoon, attendees separated into smaller rooms for more interactive breakout sessions. These sessions centered around a range of topics, from curriculum development, to PRME student engagement platforms, to PRME chapters and working groups.

Keynote Listeners

The Forum came to a close with addresses from a set of keynote listeners, attendees who were asked to give their perspectives on the conversations and ideas exchanged over the course of the Forum.

Michael Leeds, President of FlightStar Inc., emphasized the need for a new way of thinking about sustainability in corporate contexts. The hard versus soft skill division is highly problematic, he says. Sustainability, ethics and social responsibility should be embedded in the business paradigm.

Rather than innovating from the inside-out — that is, determining how best to conduct business without harming the environment — future leaders will need to pivot their strategies, aiming to address the most pressing social and environmental concerns from the outside-in.

Business school curriculums, Leeds suggests, should likewise be designed around these concerns. PRME plays a crucial role in developing responsible leaders to encourage organizations to work toward the common good.

Outcomes & Concluding Remarks

Finally, Head of the PRME initiative Jonas Haertle took to the stage to congratulate the PRME community on their first ten years of impact, and to implore them to continue serving as agents of change in their communities.

“Through your research, your education, your convening power and your advocacy, you will help to ensure that businesses embrace the disruptive power of the Sustainable Development Goals,” Haertle says. “Thank you for your engagement.”

You can find the 2017 Outcomes Declaration here. For more information about PRME, email info@unprme.org, visit www.unprme.org, or engage on Twitter, LinkedIn and Medium.

Principles for Responsible Management Education

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PRME is a United Nations-supported initiative with a mission to transform business and management education, research, and thought leadership globally.

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