The world is changing, and so is education. Five years ago, KEDGE business school launched an unprecedented MSc in sustainability management. This year, the business school has added a new module, designed with makesense, that focuses on the human factor, the source of all major change. Fiammetta Cascioli Karivalis, professor and founder of the master’s, and alumna Shivani Kumar describe a teaching approach that favours fieldwork over lectures.
In 2022, we were just coming out of lockdown, the year was already the hottest on record, and you, Fiammetta, launched a new master’s, the MSc Business Transformation for Sustainability. What challenges did you want to address?
Six years ago, when I joined KEDGE, I was asking myself a fundamental question: what does it still mean to teach management in a world that is changing so fast? I’m a professor of management and organizational behaviour, but also a researcher. I’ve done a lot of work on lifelong learning capacity as a lever for changing behaviour. Over time, one thing became clear: management was still largely rooted in the past, before the major social and environmental shifts. Yet today, organizations have to respond to challenges that didn’t exist before the climate crisis, or at least not with this intensity.
Shivani, what brought you to this MSc?
After studying communications at Sciences Po, where there was no master’s in sustainability, I first worked on a permanent contract in food experience. The work was more about storytelling, we didn’t really get our hands dirty. That made me start questioning things. I quit my permanent job and went back to school with KEDGE’s first intake. I really enjoyed the human side, and the fact that people came looking for sustainability in a tangible way, not just from a theoretical standpoint.
While some master’s programmes focus on corporate social responsibility as their way into sustainable development, you choose to focus on individual and collective mindset and soft skills. Why?
Fiammetta: Five years ago, my three areas of expertise, organizational behaviour, sustainability and instructional design, were naturally converging on a single question: what behaviours are emerging to meet today’s challenges? What learning mindset should be fostered ? What more virtuous behaviours should we encourage?
It was in that spirit that we built the MSc around three core principles. First, transforming organizations means being willing to transform yourself, to shift your own perspective. Second, you transform by doing. We firmly believe in learning by doing, but I wanted to go further and root the MSc in learning by engaging. Today, students work hands-on with NGOs and companies, and that is how they learn to engage.
Finally, employability is built during the MSc. Our graduates mainly go into consulting or large companies undergoing transition. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the skills the market expects, we give students knowledge and tools they can apply directly in their future job. Around forty partners - companies and NGOs active in our ecosystem - have in fact been entrusting us with real cases over the past years.
"This master will provide you with the unique opportunity to work closely with expert professionals on fascinating, concrete & transformative projects around sustainability!”
Timothée Simonnet from Page Group
Shivani, do you use these soft skills today?
Yes, 90% of my job is working with people, which takes relational agility and patience. I constantly come back to the balance needed between creating environmental, social and economic value, so as not to overlook the perspective of any given stakeholder. It helps me think things through and keep a critical eye.
Fiammetta, this year you’re launching a new module with makesense. What is it about?
This Change management for sustainability module was the logical next step in our approach: how do we actually roll up our sleeves? The module is built around three ideas: facilitating collective intelligence, knowing how to build a community to turn passive employees into change-makers, and adopting the mindset of a sustainable leader, with non-violent communication and the art of advocacy to win over senior leadership. These aren’t lectures but experiential learning journeys, and that is what makes it truly original.
In practice, how does it work?
In the autumn, we kicked off the course with an art thinking workshop. Students created subversive works of art challenging a social convention, linked to environmental and social issues. They then took part in sustainability factory workshops, in collaboration with Fnac Darty, to help the Group build its Biodiversity roadmap. After that, we have lots planned. For example, on 16 December, we’re holding a big event on biodiversity with the leading scientist in the field among the speakers: Marc-André Selosse. In January and February, students will offer strategic consulting to french and international NGOs.In March, we’re planning a “learning expedition”: students will meet communities, social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs from the makesense ecosystem. Several major french companies from makesense’s Club des Communautés will set real challenges for the students. After that, full days will be devoted to community building, mapping stakeholders, building a mobilization strategy, running a community in order to solve these real challenges. The results will be presented in May at the makesense communities festival, in front of the wider club.
This MSc is a courageous programme, we raise tough, complex questions you won’t find in every business school.
Fiammetta
How are students responding to these new offerings?
Fiammetta: “This MSc changed my life” is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. That is what a shift in mindset means: letting go of our certainties and embarking on transformation. On the programme, we practise “ambidextrous” teaching: sometimes we let students get lost and step out of their comfort zone, sometimes we push them to deliver and present their work. We coach them through debriefing sessions: what worked, what didn’t, and why. Knowing when to step off the hamster wheel and see the bigger picture isn’t easy, which is why we run reflexivity sessions, a bit like with a coach at the gym.
Shivani: I loved the multidisciplinary approach: we worked across the entire sustainability value chain, it was real intellectual gymnastics, with different stakeholders. And the company challenge was very concrete. My favourite course was sustainable finance, with a case study on a company of our choice. We picked a company that published so many environmental reports that we ended up unable to find answers, for example on how much money was actually invested in renewables. It deconstructed our somewhat naive initial view and helped us build more solid thinking. Getting the NGO perspective too, understanding what’s happening on the civil society side, is invaluable: when you start working in a company, you have to remember who the people behind the business are.
This international MSc is open to the world. It welcomes and includes students from all over the world to tackle challenges that have become global. Makesense, with its international DNA, brings that openness too.
AI is turning everything upside down. How are you integrating this new component into your master’s?
Fiammetta: We integrate it as a tool for challenging ideas or curating content, but with a critical eye. As part of our Art Thinking practices, we take a detour through art to contrast artificial intelligence with artistic intelligence. Machines will be faster than us at repeating routines and managing data. But humans will do better on three fronts: creating human connections, drawing on those interactions to develop a systemic view, and moving forward when the goal isn’t clear and has to be created in motion, by doing. These are all skills we develop throughout the programme in partnership with makesense. AI has no sense of meaning, and no intuition. The ability to think through complexity and reason in a non-linear, systemic way is at the core of the MSc. AI will never be able to replace it.
MSc, Master of Science Business Transformation for Sustainability
Learn by engaging. Join an ambitious programme built on experiential learning alongside companies and NGOs within the dynamic Paris ecosystem. Designed for change-makers ready to embrace personal transformation and lead sustainability transitions across organizations.
