SUSTAINABILITY
with clean industrial clusters and create specialist energy transition roles for students from non-STEM backgrounds (eg sustainability leadership and policy). This kind of geographical relevance not only aligns business schools with national and regional needs, but also makes them more attractive to local students who want their education to connect with real-world purpose. Of course, it is equally important to pair local focus with a global outlook. Business schools must help students develop a deep understanding of the benefits of cross-cultural collaboration, as well as the far-reaching impact of international policy decisions on the energy transition. In today’s interconnected world, sustainability challenges and solutions rarely stop at national borders. A purely local approach, without global perspective, risks leaving graduates unprepared for the complexities of working across regions, industries and regulatory environments. Business schools that successfully integrate both dimensions will be far better positioned to produce leaders who can navigate and shape the global low-carbon economy. Transforming into transition leaders Finally, business schools must help students become not just functional experts, but also agents of change within the organisations they join. Leading an energy transition or sustainability initiative requires deep cultural awareness, influence and communication skills. Business schools can develop these capabilities by embedding organisational development practices into the curriculum; looking, for example, at how to create sustainability champion networks, run innovation challenges, build a coherent change narrative and use behaviours to reinforce new norms. Leaders must learn to move beyond technical fixes. As one CEO told us in a previous piece of research: “We set the targets. We wrote the strategy. But without culture change, nothing really stuck.” In short, the energy transition is not a siloed trend. It’s a redefinition of business itself, which opens up a world of opportunities based not just on hard skills but also on deep-rooted behaviours. Business schools that embrace this reality and design their offerings around it will become indispensable, rather than merely staying relevant. They will produce graduates who are not just job‑ready, but also able to drive change, navigate complexity and lead with integrity in a world where business is expected to do more – and do better.
making; and skills to lead innovation and culture change.
Business school curricula and learning experiences can be enhanced to promote ‘transition-ready’ mindsets for our evolving landscape, as these examples demonstrate. ASSEMBLING AGENTS OF CHANGE
Experiential learning & industry collaboration : Real‑world engagement is crucial. Sponsoring student consulting projects in climate tech, clean energy or sustainability strategy helps students build practical skills while tackling genuine business challenges. Partnerships with local industries undergoing transition – such as energy, food and logistics – ensure learning stays grounded in reality. At Hult, a core feature of all our degree programmes is embedded business challenges with corporate partners and all programmes involve challenges focused on sustainability issues. Career services & opportunity mapping : Career teams must start spotlighting emerging roles in sustainability, clean tech and green finance – roles that students may not have considered but where demand is accelerating. At the same time, they should help students understand the capabilities and mindsets needed across sectors, not just narrow job titles, emphasising that in a few short years some of these roles may not exist while others are still to emerge. Something we have frequently done is invite specialist executive search and recruitment consultants, such as Acre Resources, to come to campus to share insights on the evolving career landscape.
Curriculum innovation : Business schools must
integrate sustainability, systems thinking and climate strategy across core subjects – from finance and strategy to marketing and operations. At Hult we’ve integrated a variety of key topics, including ESG reporting and tools into accounting courses; how ESG performance can influence cost of capital into finance courses; how to influence consumer behaviour change on sustainability into marketing courses; circular economy into innovation courses; and human rights due diligence into operations and supply chain courses. New modules : Dedicated courses on energy transition, circular business models, ESG finance and sustainable innovation should not be electives but essentials. The Hult MBA and EMBA have a core course on meeting sustainable development goals, for example. This helps students understand history and context; the evolving roles of international institutions, the private sector and other actors; tools for strategic decision-
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Business Impact • ISSUE 5 • 2025
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