IN 2017, THE Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM) in France formally announced its goal of evolving into a “school for business and society.” While keeping its emphasis on entrepreneurship and technology, the
school also planned to adopt more initiatives aimed at fostering sustainability
and solving the world’s great problems.
This dedication to social issues wasn’t new—in fact, in 2008, the
school became a signatory to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible
Management Education. Around the same time, it brought
in Jaclyn Rosebrook-Collignon as head of sustainability and global
responsibility. But this burgeoning interest in the role of business did
signal a huge cultural shift, says Rosebrook-Collignon.
“We asked ourselves, How do we get
from being a classic French business
school to being a school for society?” she
says. “How do we integrate sustainability
into all our activities? How do we integrate
multistakeholder approaches both
from within and outside our school?”
Two of the school’s recent initiatives
have spotlighted the breadth of its dedication
to social issues—one a program
focused on immigrants, and the other
a policy aimed at turning GEM into a
zero-waste institution.
PROVIDING REFUGEE EDUCATION
In 2015, as the world was presented with
horrifying images of dying migrants,
France’s minister of education asked
schools to accelerate the process of
integrating refugees who were already
in France. In Grenoble—which Rosebrook-
Collignon describes as a progressive,
internationally oriented city—a
local university consortium quickly
formed to address the issue. The consortium
was piloted by the Université
Grenoble Alpes (UGA).
Rosebrook-Collignon joined the
consortium’s work group dedicated
to refugee aid. The group has created
guides and communication channels,
partnered with local humanitarian
organizations, and worked with the city
to create services and resources for refugees.
The consortium also has developed
numerous activities and learning materials
that can be used in a free workshop
called Co-Training, which helps
migrants and refugees develop skills in
subjects like digital literacy, English, and
math. In addition, the consortium collaborates
with Scholars at Risk, an NGO
that supports academics in exile.
“UGA has a huge center for French
as a foreign language, and they quickly
mobilized to create an accelerated diploma
program to help refugee students
access higher education more quickly,”
says Rosebrook-Collignon. The center
currently serves refugees from Turkey,
Iraq, Angola, Syria, and Afghanistan.
At the same time, GEM took specific steps to welcome migrants to its campus
by pledging to annually offer up to ten
spots in any of its programs to qualified
students with refugee status. Their
application fees and tuition fees are
waived, and those who are younger than
26 can apply for French student housing
aid. Those from Syria can also apply for
national scholarships so they don’t have
to work during their studies; however,
those scholarships are limited. GEM’s
first refugee candidates came through
UGA’s program in 2016.
Since then, GEM has accepted nine
refugee students; four have graduated,
and two more began classes in September
of 2019. Once refugees are accepted
into a GEM program, they are treated
like any other student—and, in GEM’s
international student population, there
is nothing that particularly identifies
them as refugees. They are tracked by a
staff member who follows and assists all
students who have “atypical” profiles,
but there is no other special treatment.
Refugees that graduate from GEM
still face challenges, because they can’t
easily find work by relying on their
networks or returning to their countries
of origin, as other international students
can. “Now we’re working on creating
more professional opportunities for
these students, such as developing targeted
professional development workshops
for them,” says Rosebrook-Collignon.
“We’re helping them enter the
workforce or start their own companies
by creating more social entrepreneurship
programs and incubators with our
students and local associations.”
There might need to be a cultural shift that requires universities to rethink their definition of globalization.
Rosebrook-Collignon’s hope is that,
in the future, GEM can reach migrants
who might be in even more dire need.
She points out that those who have
taken advantage of the tuition-free
offer have already “made it,” in that they
have already obtained refugee status in
France, as well as the diplomas, transcripts,
and letters of recommendation
needed to apply to the program. The bigger
concern, she says, is the 99 percent
of refugees who, according to the U.N.,
don’t have access to higher education.
“The problem is getting other refugees
access to primary and secondary
education, so they can then pursue
higher education. To me, that is clearly
a global emergency. We can either
put refugees in camps, which is what
we’ve been doing, or we can find ways of
accelerating their integration—helping
them become the productive members
of society that they want to be.”
She thinks this might require another
cultural shift that forces universities to
rethink their very definition of globalization.
“The future of internationalization
is not to get students to spend their
summer holidays building schools in
Sri Lanka. It’s to look at internationalization
at home,” says Rosebrook-
Collignon. “That is our moral duty. And
that’s where we can have more impact.”
PURSUING ZERO WASTE
While educating migrants focuses on
saving people, GEM’s new zero-waste
policy focuses on saving the planet. The
school has long adopted waste reduction
policies, but its dean and director, Loïck
Roche, recently announced that GEM
would be a zero-waste institution by
2020. For Rosebrook-Collignon, who
wrote up the school’s official strategy on
the topic, this meant redefining the very
concept of “waste” by identifying six key
areas of improvement.
The first three are the obvious ones:
reducing the consumption of natural
resources; reducing the consumption of food, paper, and plastic, while
recycling e-waste and consumer goods;
and reducing carbon emissions by
reconsidering travel options, promoting
telecommuting, holding virtual meetings,
and providing online classes. But
Rosebrook-Collignon wanted to commit
to reducing the waste of another kind
of resource—human potential—in three
other areas:
Intangible waste. According to the
new policy, the school will avoid governance
models that have negative human
impact, such as stress and burnout, and
it will promote research on well-being,
economic peace, and alternative forms
of markets and organizations.
Social economic waste. The school
will contribute positively to a robust
local economy by providing living wages,
improving job security, and contributing
to social integration initiatives.
Cultural waste. The school will
encourage collaboration between cultures,
promote ethics and responsible
engagement, accommodate disabilities
and differences, foster an environment of
equality, and provide asylum to migrants.
“We want to make sure we’re not
wasting talent, people, cultures, or CO2,”
says Rosebrook-Collignon. “We’re looking
at frugal innovation and alternative
economic models so we’re not wasting
economics. Zero waste means more than
just recycling plastic bottles.”
But eliminating those plastic bottles
is one important step. “We have a labor-intense admissions process where
students come from all over France to
take entrance exams, and we used to give
out treats and plastic bottles of water to
the juries,” says Rosebrook-Collignon.
“This year we replaced all the bottles
with refillable glass containers, and
instead of giving treats to the jurors, we
allowed them to vote on a local philanthropic
organization that we would give
the money to. These are small actions,
but we want them to be generalized to
everything we do at the school.”
GEM students are enthusiastically
supporting the zero-waste activities.
For instance, one of the 25 student
associations at the school is dedicated to
sustainability, and it is collaborating on
Rosebrook-Collignon’s waste reduction
efforts. This year, these students made it
mandatory for every student association
to include a sustainability component
in its activities and participate in the
school’s Sustainability Steering committee
that is co-piloted by students.

During their gap year, a team of GEM students created “Otravia,” a documentary series exploring
alternative and ethical companies. Photo by Otravia.
GEM students also encourage sustainability
by giving out an “eco-party”
label to groups whose events feature
reusable cups and recycling efforts.
“We’ve been working to get certified as
an eco-party organization for many of
our events held on and off campus,” says
Rosebrook-Collignon. “We have a gala
for all our graduating students, and we
didn’t do a good enough job last year, so
we didn’t get certified. But we’re getting
better every year.”
At the same time, GEM has been
working with other schools and universities
on zero-waste initiatives, mostly
through sharing best practices. Says
Rosebrook-Collignon, “You don’t need
a million different ways of recycling.
This is not a competitive area. It
doesn’t serve any purpose for us to be
the best zero-waste school or the best
sustainability school unless we all get
there together.”
As GEM considers the impact it is
having on business and society, it is bringing
together a multistakeholder group to
help it articulate a five-year strategy that
it plans to announce in 2020.
“It’s a messy process, but I think it’s
essential that we take all stakeholders
into consideration as we develop our
mission,” says Rosebrook-Collignon.
“It shouldn’t be just the board of
directors deciding what direction
we’re going in or what cause we’re
going to work on. We have to have a
multistakeholder process because
that’s the future of business and that’s
the future of sustainability.”
View a video about GEM’s refugee program.
This article originally appeared in BizEd's November/December 2019 issue. Please send questions, comments, or letters to the editor to bized.editors@aacsb.edu.
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