Institutional Partnerships

The sustainable development house. Primarily a showcase for industry experts, it also attracts the general public. The friendly, informative house seeks to foster exchanges between professionals and citizens, through discussions and conferences, exhibitions, and entertainment for visitors, both young and old. Every project adopts an educational, scientific spirit. In concrete terms, it offers a devote site where interested parties can find vast documentation related to the environment, eco-consumption and construction, responsible actions, energy saving, and environmental advice on mobility and power. It benefits from the collaborations with sustainable development experts from UCL. For example, in collaboration with selected students and other organizations, it organizes a sustainable development day in Louvain-la-Neuve, featuring animations, sustainable fashion shows, debates, concerts, and conferences.

The European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) is an international networking organization, based in Brussels, Belgium. With more than 650 member organizations from academia, business, public service and consultancy in 75 countries, EFMD provides a unique forum for information, research, networking and debate on innovation and best practice in management development.

The Louvain School of Management is a member of the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS) that regularly collaborate to different humanitarian projects. For instance, the CEMS joined forces with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and international courrier TNT to support the 3rd Annual “Fight Hunger: Walk the World”. This global humanitarian initiative aims at raising awareness and funds to eradicate child hunger in the world by 2015.

CSR Europe was created in March 1996 on the basis of the European Business Declaration against Social Exclusion, initiated by former President Jacques Delors and business leaders. CSR Europe has currently 70 large company members and 25 National Partner organisations that outreach towards over 2000 enterprises across Europe which engaged in a process of mainstreaming CSR in their management processes and functions. CSR Europe is a privileged interlocutor of the European institutions and is currently one of the leading organisations chosen by the European Commission in 2006 to coordinate the European Alliance for CSR.

Practically, the Alliance aims to help cast a light on innovative CSR practices and stimulate new ones, further ease private initiatives in the area of CSR, enable networking and the exchange of experiences and knowledge, support capacity building, and encourage the development of joint projects between companies and their stakeholders. One of the main objectives of the Alliance is also to support the European Multistakeholder Forum on CSR and to encourage further integration of CSR in the curriculum of future managers. The European Commission, the Forum and the partners engaged in the Alliance believe it is essential that Business schools, universities and other education institutions play a more pro-active role in mainstreaming CSR into traditional courses, in the curricula of future managers and graduate students, in executive education, and in other educational institutions. Since 2007, the cooperation between LSM and CSR Europe is being developed through the Belgacom Chair on CSR and the active participation of Jan Noterdaeme (co-founder of CSR Europe) in CSR courses offered at the LSM. Further cooperation between LSM and CSR Europe is being explored regarding a project that CSR Europe is working on in support to the European Alliance for CSR: “the Responsible Enterprise 2020”.

Guberna: Some of our members (Yves De Cordt, Yves de Rongé, Valérie Swaen) are part of Guberna academic council which is the advisory board of Guberna. Concretely, the role of the Academic Council is to be a sounding board and to provide advice and comments focused on the development of knowledge and research in the broad area of governance. The Academic Council serves as a platform for the exchange of information and ideas on current and future research projects in the field of corporate governance. In addition, the Academic Council offers a way to stimulate research on governance among students as part of their master dissertations/master thesis.

The GRLI is a unique global community of action and learning, consisting of companies, business schools and universities that work individually, in pairs, in clusters and collectively. The GRLI’s mission is to promote support and execute the development of a next generation of globally responsible leaders. The GRLI developed the concept of global responsibility as a new and evolving subject which goes well beyond traditional notions of corporate citizenship. A unique characteristic of the GRLI is that it seeks to maintain a balance between businesses and business schools/learning institutions, usually ensuring that each business school that joins does so with a business partner.  In 2006 and 2007, the Louvain School of Management was associated to GSK Biologicals in order to unfold a strategic CSR agenda in this pharmaceutical company based on a complete auditing of GSK’s CSR practices. LSM also participates twice a year in the general Assembly. And in his book “Should Prometheus be bound?” Professor Emeritus Phillipe de Woot of the LSM explores the ideas that are emerging out of the GRLI.

GRLI manifesto

The Centre for Research in Accounting and Sustainability (CerCeDD) aims to develop research, training and knowledge transfer activities on issues related to the accounting for sustainable development in order to increase knowledge in this area and contribute to improving practices within organizations.

Created in 1991, the Hoover Chair aims to stimulate an ethical reflection in teaching and research at the ESPO (UCL), and helps to nurture a clear and informed debate on ethical issues faced by our society in the scope of the faculty’s competences/disciplines. These objectives are pursued through (1) the organization of debates, seminars, symposia and a certificate in economic and social ethics, (2) by welcoming foreign visitors and participating in many activities organized by third parties in Belgium and /or abroad. These activities are relayed by a large number of downloadable publications from the Publications page or from the personal members of the Hoover Chair’s page.

IÉSEG aims to be a source of inspiration and a proactive player in the development of a responsible and sustainable economic and social environment by being a forum for debate, and as a source of diffusion of creative knowledge and solutions. To meet this ambition, the IÉSEG Center for Organizational Responsibility (ICOR) was founded in January 2014. The two central missions of this integrated, cross- departmental academic center are to constitute a coordination center for all initiatives around social responsibility and sustainability currently developed by and within the School (including the School’s commitment to international and national schemes, such as the UN Global Compact, the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative, and The UN Principles for Responsible Management Education) and to represent a constructive platform for the proposal and development of refined actions and innovative initiatives linked to social responsibility and sustainability ideas at the School level, in collaboration with its stakeholders.