In Reflets Magazine #145, Anne-Claire Pache (E94), Director of Strategy and Societal Engagement at ESSEC, presents her actions and road map to integrate social and environmental aspects in all the School’s decisions. Here is a free online translation of the article… click here  to get the next issues (in French)! 

Reflets Magazine: What are your tasks and duties as Director of Strategy and Societal Engagement at ESSEC?

Anne-Claire Pache: My role since September 2020 has basically been to assist Dean Vincenzo Vinzi in the implementation of the major guidelines set out in the RISE strategic plan. More specifically, this includes the roll-out of our three strategic pillars, i.e. entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence via the Metalab, and environmental and social transition through the Together initiative. I also supervise accreditation and ranking, presenting the School’s activities to outside players such as public and international accreditation bodies, as well as the media organisations which produce these rankings. One of my core tasks is to represent ESSEC’s societal commitment within the School’s Executive Committee, and to ensure these social and environmental questions are taken into account in all the major strategic decisions the School makes.

RM: So, this is not a sort of gimmick, but a genuine engagement on the part of ESSEC.

A.-C. Pache: Exactly, and it’s important to point out that this is the first time in the history of the School that there is a formal position on the Executive Committee devoted to societal commitment, and that a genuine governance has been built around these issues. We also created a societal impact committee within the Overseer’s Board, which will guide and lend impetus to all the actions led by the School in this area. Lastly, we created a permanent in-house team around Chantal Dardelet. These actions were defined in line with our three key activities: training, research and campus management. They cover environmental, social and societal transformation. We outlined ten commitments for the latter, such as training in environmental issues for all our students, whether on Grande École, BBA or specialised Masters programmes, and across our three campuses in Cergy, Singapore and Rabat. As of this academic year, all our students also take a 20-hour course in diversity and inclusion. Finally, we are working to ensure core management courses (economics, finance, marketing and strategy, etc.) integrate all these subjects in their course content.

RM: What about teaching?

A.-C. Pache: In terms of teaching, we’ve created new specialisation programmes. We created an Environmental Transition Talents chair; a circular economy chair; and another entitled Shaping the Future of Finance around responsible finance, and lastly two other chairs entitled Food Business Challenges for sustainable food and Businesses and the Common Good. This amounts to five new specialisations which add to the historical Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation, Urban Economy and Leadership & Diversity chairs. This has allowed us to offer a relatively unequalled range, in France or Europe, of subjects around transition. Lastly, we created two new programmes, the MSc in Sustainability Transformation and Bachelor Act (in partnership with  CY Cergy Paris University). For the 1-year Master programme, we already have 37 students from 19 nationalities hoping to become experts in the sustainable transition of organisations. The Bachelor Act is a 3-year multidisciplinary undergraduate course, which opened to a first class of 30 students, recruited for their academic excellence AND their commitment to community, cultural or citizen initiatives. We have made great efforts to identify positive young leader profiles.

RM: How is the transformation of the campuses progressing?

A.-C. Pache: This is a key aspect of the School’s transformation programme. In particular, we are committed to reducing the carbon footprint of our campuses by 25%. It must be pointed out that almost 80% of ESSEC’s carbon footprint is due to our travel, and out of that 80%, 80% is due to student travel. This is thus a major issue for an international school with campuses in Singapore and Rabat, whose vocation is also to raise intercultural awareness of customs and practices. To that end, we must now foster the widest possible opening on a European level, which is why we developed a new programme, the European Management Track, to enable exchange with European academic partners. We have also opted for locations which are accessible by train for all the trips we organise in the context of chairs and specialised masters, except in specific cases, obviously. At the same time, we are raising awareness among our students on their choice of destination for their internships and exchanges, with a financial incentive of up to €100 per year in sustainable mobility cheques when they opt for low-carbon transport.

RM: What are the other aspects of the School’s carbon reduction effort?

A.-C. Pache: As with all organisations, energy-saving is a key concern for us. Just under a year ago for instance, we invested in a technical building management system, which enables us to monitor our heating, lighting and IT equipment use a lot more closely. We are also working on the installation of solar panels wherever possible on the roofs of the Cergy campus, so we can produce our own electricity. We set up a whole waste sorting and recycling system on the same campus. Improving our performance in recycling requires lengthy efforts in raising awareness, as waste sorting is not quite a natural reflex yet. The last initiative to mention as part of our sustainable food goal is the introduction of ‘Green Monday’ on the Cergy campus. Every Monday, the catering menu for staff and students is entirely vegetarian.

RM: Are you involved in the Campus 2023 project?

A.-C. Pache: Yes, of course, given its highly ambitious environmental perspective, specifically in terms of building insulation, biodiversity with the planting of trees and green spaces, and the pedestrianisation of the entire campus grounds. As an exemplary model in all aspects of this area, our Singapore campus is a huge source of inspiration. The campus produces 10% of its electricity needs thanks to solar panels. Edible plants are grown on the roofs, tended to by students who can then consume them for free or donate them to charities. This also serves as a way to raise awareness among students and involve them in environmental preservation.

RM: You have just announced the launch of a StartUp Studio; what is that exactly?

A.-C. Pache: The idea is to ‘industrialise’ business creation. At present, our ESSEC Ventures incubator is open to any student with a business creation idea, which often leads to some great success stories. With the incubator, the starting point is thus the student’s desire to start a business. With the StartUp Studio, the starting point is elsewhere; we identify a problem and create a business by gathering together the resources required for its solution. This is a way to combine the cutting-edge technologies developed by researchers and the entrepreneurial talents of the ESSEC ecosystem. The project draws on ESSEC resources, an academic partner network such as CYU or CEREMA, and industrial partners with whom we will create synergies. That’s the general mechanism. As for the aims of our future StartUp Studio, we chose to target cleantech, with a view to developing large-scale business projects which address the environmental challenges of our times.

RM: The social opening of the school is a particular focus for you; what actions are you planning in this area?

A.-C. Pache: For twenty years, we’ve been working, via our student tutors, to guide young people from working-class backgrounds towards higher education. In exceptional cases, some of these young people join ESSEC, while others go on to study medicine, engineering or to a career in teaching. We also set up two programmes, CAP ESSEC and CAP BBA, to broaden the diversity of our own recruitment. CAP BBA recruits on a BTS or DUT diploma level, whereas CAP ESSEC is geared towards the Master level, and both programmes have enabled us to substantially increase the proportion of students from working-class backgrounds in the cohort of admissions. Furthermore, in the spring of 2022, we introduced a new procedure within the Grande Ecole entrance exam, the Dual Call to Oral. This enables some forty scholarship students with a score 0.2 points below the admission level to be called to an oral interview. The admission threshold remains the same for everyone. Among the 35 students called to interview this year, 24 succeeded in enrolling in ESSEC. At present, 22% of the students on the Grande Ecole programme have scholarship or equivalent status, which is a much higher rate than other major business schools, particularly in Paris. To facilitate integration in our ecosystem, we set up the ‘Fully ESSEC’ programme, which includes all the populations who, for one reason or another, feel they are a minority in the school. The programme is geared towards working-class students, in addition to the growing number of foreign students.

RM: What about gender diversity?

A.-C. Pache: The overall male-female ratio among our students is close to 50:50, so we do not have any particular issues to address in terms of recruitment. However, we recently strengthened our measures to address sexist and sexual violence, to make a ESSEC a place where everyone, regardless of their gender, sexuality, religion or culture, feels at home. Professor Viviane de Beaufort initiated this measure a few years ago, which we have since institutionalised by creating a permanent team dedicated to these issues and led by Marion Ligonie. Two years ago, we also opened an online alert platform to allow anyone who witnesses or is a victim of a breach to our Respect for Others Charter to notify the school of the situation. Each alert is carefully examined, and when justified, protective and disciplinary measures are taken with a view to ‘Zero Tolerance’.

RM: On a completely different note, Thierry Sibieude has just left ESSEC after 20 years at the helm of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Chair, which he co-founded with you. What legacy will he leave behind?

A.-C. Pache: Thierry was the School’s founding father in all areas linked to social innovation and entrepreneurship. He was a highly active intrapreneur around all these issues within ESSEC. In addition to the chair we co-created, he was the initiator of the equal opportunity programme Une grande école, pourquoi pas moi ? [A Grand Ecole, Why Not Me?]; the social enterprise booster, Antropia, co-developed with Marie Trellu Kane (E94), and more recently the social & environmental impact assessment laboratory (Labo E&MISE), in association with Jérôme Schatzman (E94) and Élise Leclerc. He thus created a completely unique ecosystem within a business school around the issues of social and environmental impact. He was my personal mentor and a rare breed of academic entrepreneur who was capable of forging very precious ties between the academic sphere and the practical world. We will miss him greatly!

RM: You joined ESSEC in the early 1990s. What determined this choice?

A.-C. Pache: I’m a pure product of the French educational system! I opted for a preparatory course in economics for its more generalist approach than literary or scientific courses, but without really knowing what a business school was, nor where it would take me!

RM: Any regrets?

A.-C. Pache: Absolutely not, I was very lucky to have joined ESSEC! I found my family straight away within the Urban Economy Chair, which Alain Sallez (E61) had created a few years prior to my admission. At that time, this was the first framework within which we used management science to serve the common good, i.e. city management. This subject fascinated me and probably determined the rest of my career. I am also very grateful to the School and the ESSEC Alumni Association for having granted me a subsidy in 1995 and 1996 to co-found the Unis-Cité association (see our article) with Lisbeth Shepherd, a young American student visiting ESSEC, Marie Trellu-Kane and Julie Chénot (E94). With Unis-Cité, we went some way to inventing the model which has now become the civic service programme for young people in France. It was an absolutely amazing adventure, which Marie continues to lead today.

RM: How do you see the School at present?

A.-C. Pache: I returned to ESSEC more than 20 years ago as a lecturer, and it is difficult for me to differentiate the school of today from that of yesterday, because it all forms a continuum in my mind. The ESSEC of today upholds the humanist, innovative and pioneering values I perceived as a student in the early 90s. This is why I am so very attached to the School, and firmly believe that the ongoing transition is sincere and deep-rooted. It will not change what ESSEC has always been; on the contrary it will serve to strengthen its DNA.

Interview by François de Guillebon and Michel Zerr, editor-in-chief and correspondent of Reflets Magazine

Translation of an article published in Reflets Magazine #145. Click here  to get a complimentary access to the issue (in French). Subscribe here to get the next issues (in French).

Image : © Arnaud Calais