Sustainability in action: United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (UN PRME)

5a: Enrol 80-100 executive students per annum onto the Sustainability MSc. 5b: Launch a Climate Action Planning programme to all Business Growth programme alumni as the next stage of growth and development. 5c: Creating an active alumni network of Sustainability MSc graduates. Goals: “I see my role as connecting our education provision, our research and our work with business partners and linking within our own campus. I work closely with various faculty groups across SOM and the wider university to help connect industry partners in the technical school to management education.” Phil Longhurst, Director of Partnerships and Professor of Environment and Energy Technology for School of Water, Energy and Environment Principle 5 | Partnerships We will interact with managers to extend our knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and environmental responsibilities. And explore jointly effective approaches to meeting these challenges. This is an area Cranfield School of Management excels in, owing to its deep roots in industry and practice through partnership. Cranfield University faculty, staff and students work extensively in partnership with external commercial, public and not-for profit organisations to help them to improve their responsible management practices and sustainability performance. Executive education represents a key opportunity for us to work directly with leaders of businesses to equip them with the knowledge, competencies, and mindset to lead and manage change towards improved sustainability performance. Most “open” programmes now include substantive modules or sessions on sustainability and/or responsible management, for example the General Management Programme and the Breakthrough Leadership programme. Increasingly, programmes customised for specific client organisations similarly emphasise social and environmental sustainability, for example, the Project Leadership Programme, run on behalf of the UK Government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority to develop project leadership skills across the public sector, and the Building Leaders Programme delivered to senior leaders in Kier Construction Ltd. When it comes to supporting smaller enterprises, the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship has established itself as a local hub connecting with local SMEs and councils to solve sustainability challenges facing them today, supporting them on their journeys towards net zero and improved social and environmental outcomes. The School of Management has grasped the opportunity to develop lifelong education for professionals presented by the UK Apprenticeships scheme. The scheme sees businesses pay a proportion of their profit into the Apprenticeship Levy which they can then use to fund ongoing education for their employees. Developed in partnership with Grant Thornton, the Executive MBA was the first Cranfield Apprenticeship to launch in 2017 and was designed with a compulsory Leading Sustainable Business module at its heart. Since our last report, we have successfully launched our Sustainability Business Specialist Apprenticeship with over 100 students now on the programme one year from launch. We find that relationships with businesses forged through our taught programme and executive education often develop into more wide-ranging, mutually beneficial partnerships: see for example our relationship with Network Rail described on page 58.