Three years ago, IÉSEG and B Lab France signed an agreement aimed at bringing students closer to purpose-driven and responsible businesses. Since 2023, this collaboration has led to a wide range of initiatives across teaching, research, and professional network engagement. These first achievements have convinced both IÉSEG and B Lab France to renew their agreement and strengthen their ties for the next three years.
“Over the past three years, IÉSEG has been a committed partner of B Lab France, playing a key role in expanding the reach of the B Corp movement, both within the community of certified B Corps and through our regional programs. By joining the B Academy as early as 2023, IÉSEG enabled its students to train on B Lab standards and directly support companies on their journey toward B Corp certification, while also introducing them to a vision of business that combines economic performance with social and environmental impact. This partnership embodies the ambition of the B Academy: to train students in using B Corp certification standards as a practical tool to measure and improve impact, while accelerating the transformation of companies toward more sustainable business models.”
Camille Paumier, Program Manager, B Lab France
Training students and raising awareness of purpose-driven businesses
Over the past three years, IÉSEG has hosted 110 talks and workshops led by certified B Corp companies as part of its courses and cross-disciplinary projects. These initiatives have allowed students across all programs to discover a wide range of career paths within mission-driven organizations. Students have also taken part in three editions of the B Corp Party — events bringing together more than 300 participants from the Hauts-de-France region through conferences, panel discussions, and company forums hosted on the School’s campus as part of the partnership.
The partnership has also given students the opportunity to engage directly with the professional world through 424 internships completed within B Corp companies. These experiences allowed them to apply their skills in more purpose-driven environments while seeking a balance between professional ambition and meaningful social and environmental impact.
Finally, thanks to this collaboration, IÉSEG became the first school to roll out the B Academy program, enabling 135 IÉSEG students to train in the B Corp certification methodology and equipping them to support companies pursuing certification as soon as they enter the workforce.
“Our partnership with B Lab France has been an especially stimulating support for our work, allowing us to deepen our analysis — through dialogue with companies engaged in pioneering transformation initiatives — of how sustainability challenges are embedded into organizational strategies and practices.” François MAON, professor of Strategy and CSR at IÉSEG.
From a research perspective, the partnership with B Lab France has given faculty members access to the B Corp company network for their research projects, helping foster innovative projects. One example is the project carried out with Columbus Consulting as part of the “Sustainability of Business in Society” Chair, created to support companies in transitioning toward more sustainable business models. Its goal was to contribute to a better understanding of the challenges involved in systematically integrating social and environmental ambitions into consulting missions, through the development of research and tools designed by the Chair’s members.
A new chapter for the next three years
Following these promising first three years, IÉSEG and B Lab France have decided to extend their partnership for an additional three years, with several new objectives:
- Reaching a broader student audience, particularly future students enrolled in the “Sustainability and Transition” minor, by training them in the B Corp methodology and expanding the impact of the B Academy
- Developing new research projects with B Corp companies, strengthening the production of studies, and enabling faculty researchers to further integrate CSR and sustainability issues into their work
- Reinforcing IÉSEG’s presence within B Corp communities, facilitating exchanges between students, faculty, and companies, and encouraging participation in events such as the B Corp Party
“This partnership generates genuine enthusiasm among students: it connects classroom learning with real-world experience, provides direct access to purpose-driven companies, and strengthens students’ ability to understand sustainability challenges in a concrete professional context. Our regions are home to many committed businesses. Renewing this partnership with B Lab France creates even more opportunities for our students to experience this commitment through projects, internships, and meetings with inspiring professionals. It also helps generate actionable knowledge for companies and positions our School as a laboratory for sustainable innovation.”
Myriam Degrave, Associate Director for Social and Environmental Impact
In line with its Vision of empowering tomorrow’s changemakers, IÉSEG intends to build on this partnership to further strengthen connections between faculty, students, alumni, and responsible and purpose-driven companies, with the ambition of generating an even greater positive impact both locally and across society as a whole.