Global Citizenship

Teacher(s)

Swaen Valérie;

Language

English

Prerequisites

You need to be enrolled in the CEMS MIM Program

Main themes

The objective of this seminar is to highlight some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (SDG’s). These goals have been launched in 2015 by the United Nations to transform the world. Building on the principle of leaving ‘no one behind”, the UN agenda emphasizes a holistic approach to achieving sustainable development for all. Each year, some of the Sustainable Development goals are chosen by the professors and are analyzed in depth by the students

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	At the end of the seminar, the students will be able  to understand the issues related to the sustainable development goals and will understand how they can personally contribute to help achieving some of the goals of the United Nations. This seminar has been integrated in the CEMS curriculum to open the minds of students on these SDG’s and show how different actors act together to reach these goals.

Content

The seminar offers you the opportunity to meet your CEMS classmates, exchange ideas and engage in debates on key sustainability challenges such as the transition toward a more sustainable economy, and systemic approaches such as leverage points and feedback-loop thinking.
Its objective is to explore how businesses and other actors can contribute to a sustainable future by addressing global challenges in an interconnected way. Through case studies, guest interventions, interactive sessions, a role-play simulation, and group work, you will discover how organizations navigate sustainability issues, identify trade-offs, and leverage systemic thinking to create impact.
The seminar emphasizes :

• A systemic (macro) view of global sustainability challenges: planetary boundaries, leverage points, and the competing economic paradigms that seek to address them;
• A strategic (meso) perspective on how firms and sectors can redesign their business models, using frameworks such as DEAL;
• A personal (micro) awareness of the cognitive biases and organisational resistance that shape real decisions.

Teaching methods

The format is deliberately interactive and keeps students in the role of analysts and decision-makers throughout:

• Mini-lectures
• Causal-loop-diagram and leverage-point-analysis exercises, in small groups
• Structured debate
• Guest input, reacting directly to students' own analyses
• Case discussion
• Individual reflective writing

Evaluation methods

The evaluation combines two components:

• Active participation and in-session productions (50%), based on students' engagement in the structured debate, small-group breakout mapping exercises as well as the quality of the outputs produced live during these activities.
• Letter to my future self (50%), 1 page, submitted within 1–2 weeks of the seminar. Students write a personal letter to themselves, to be opened in one year, addressing: (1) which SDG or sustainability issue resonated most with them and why; (2) which cognitive bias or organisational obstacle discussed during the seminar they recognise in their own thinking or professional context; and (3) one concrete action they commit to taking, with a simple way to know whether they followed through.

In case of a justified absence from the session, or for assessment in the second session, the "active participation" component is replaced by an individual written assignment (2 pages): a reasoned position on the debate topic (supported by 2–3 sources) and an individual mapping of obstacles to transition for a case of the student's choice. This assignment is graded on the same criteria as the live group outputs (relevance, rigour, creativity) and counts for 50% of the final grade, alongside the letter to one's future self.

Bibliography

Dixson-Declève, S. et al. (2022). Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity.
Kennedy, S., Grewatsch, S., Liboni, L., & Cezarino, L.O. (2026). Teaching a Systems Approach to Address the Sustainability Management Disconnect. Business & Society, 65(3), 736–770.
Meadows, D. (1999). Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System. Sustainability Institute.
Raworth, K., Sahan, E., & Sanz Ruiz, N. (2022). Deep Design: A Practical Guide for Reconfiguring Business Towards Sustainability. Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL).
Waddock, S. (2020). Transforming business purposes and practices: The need for a systems approach. Rutgers Business Review.

Faculty or entity

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