Independent University Newspaper
Copenhagen Business School
Independent University Newspaper
Copenhagen Business School
It’s hard to mention sustainable initiatives at CBS that Centre Manager Louise Thomsen hasn’t been involved with in one way or another. Since 2016, she has done her part to push CBS in a more sustainable direction. And it hasn’t always been easy. Now, she is saying goodbye to CBS with some words of advice on how the university can become even more sustainable.
The phenomenon of flight shame is spreading, but researchers don’t know why we feel like this or what the consequences of it are. Assistant Professor Florian Kock from CBS is going to investigate the nagging feeling that, according to him, can end up making even more people choose to fly. It’s quite paradoxical.
CBS’ 16-year-old cbsCSR center has changed its name to CBS Sustainability and was launched on December 3. CSR is still relevant, but CBS needs to engage in broader collaboration with universities and companies to push the sustainable development of society in the right direction, argues the center's academic director.
The framework has been laid out for CBS’ sustainability strategy, with the first initiatives covering the social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability starting up in spring. “Becoming sustainable is a common effort,” says the project manager.
No food waste, no paper waste, and no meat on the menu. These are some of the initiatives that can make events at CBS much more sustainable, and they have just been launched in a guide on how to make an event sustainable.
CBS students, Lena Tünkers and Niklas Sihan, have developed a circular deposit system that introduces reusable plastic nets made out of beached fishing nets to supermarket chains. They want to confront the perception of plastic being a bad material, as they think it is a valuable resource.
If CBS students are to become the ‘leaders of tomorrow’, they need to understand the potential of creating social and sustainable companies, argues Marine von Renteln, first year-student at CBS. Together with the social enterprise YES CPH and the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship, she is hosting a seminar about this topic on May 3 at Porcelænshaven.
If we do not meet the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, it is not the problem of the next generations, but the current students’ at CBS, pointed out the former chairman of the UN General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, in a debate about the SDGs at CBS. Also, read about what kind of greenwashing traps companies risk falling into, and why the students should care about SDGs at all.
The future of CBS is about to look greener. The Green Network, consisting of professionals, experts, and students from CBS, has received a green light from the senior management to draft a sustainability strategy for CBS. The first initiatives will be ready in 2019, and you can participate by sharing ideas that would make CBS more sustainable.
Teaching material on sustainable business models is a scarcity. But CBS wants to change that together with the Norwegian School of Economics and the Spanish ESADE Business & Law School, as they are planning to launch an open source and online educational material about sustainable business models in 2019.
Sustainability isn’t just a trend that’s about to pass. Teachers are experiencing that students demand to be taught more about sustainability. Two students from OIKOS think that CBS needs to introduce more mandatory courses in sustainability if it wants to be in tune with the future of businesses and consumer behavior.
Instead of letting the food from the five canteens at CBS go to waste, you can fill a box for DKK 15. Although the new initiative is facing some challenges, it’s “here to stay,” says the Director of Spisestuerne.
Lectures in sustainability and CSR are not worth much if CBS itself does not set a good example, argues Maribel Blasco, Associate Professor at CBS. According to her, students will only take responsibility and sustainability seriously if CBS shows that it does so itself as well. “Students spot hypocrisy right away,” she says.
Imagine a point system in which you could earn points each time you did a sustainable deed; such as, biking to CBS. This sums up an idea conceived three students from CBS and the University of Copenhagen at last weekend’s Sustainable Campus Hackathon. The idea was brilliant enough to earn the group a trip to PRME’s office in New York in order to present it next year. Furthermore, a task force is working on getting the idea implemented at CBS.
The new Department of Management, Society and Communication wanted to be more sustainable. In order to become so, they came up with a competition among staff members. This has resulted in a vegetarian default food policy. The first of its kind at CBS.
Three different colored sorting bins, situated throughout the Solbjerg Plads, have been part of an experiment running for more than six years. But the trash never got sorted. Now, the bins have been removed, the day after CBS WIRE asked what happens to the waste.
CBS has a copious amount of researchers that are specialists in CSR and sustainable management, and the students are, from day one, told and taught to act responsibly. But CBS does not have an overall strategy about how to be a sustainable university. We asked the University Director why. Staff members working with sustainability and CSR argue that CBS can do much more, and should if they do not want to be blamed for greenwashing.
The clock is ticking. On Thursday morning (5 October), CBS employees will know if they are up for dismissal or not. But what will happen on the day? What emotional stages are you likely to encounter? And who will be there to pick you up when you are feeling the blow of being laid off? CBS WIRE has talked to HR and the consulting agency Actief Hartmanns to provide you with answers.
03 Oct 2023
There are many approaches to finding your first job. Three recent CBS graduates talk about how they landed theirs. Their approaches were quite different, yet they all highlight networking as a key element.
02 Oct 2023
In these final days of September, the fate of a number of CBS employees is being decided. The final amount of money saved on salaries via voluntary severance agreements (aka redundancy packages, Ed.) and senior agreements will be known. After this, the actual number of employees up for dismissal will be decided by management – and then the individuals will be selected.
30 Sep 2023
CBS is laying off a number of employees soon, which will affect our university in different ways. When employees are fired without having done anything wrong, it shatters the trust between the organisation and employees, while also taking a toll on productivity, according to a CBS expert. Layoffs also affect the ‘survivors’, who are forced to adapt to a changed workload and the loss of cherished colleagues.
27 Sep 2023
Exam anxiety? Lost student card? I’ve wedged my car between a Fiat 500 and a lamp post, can you help? You never know what you’ll be asked next. But that’s just how the Campus Desk team like it. And if they can’t fix your problem, they’ll know someone who can. CBS WIRE asked the team about the whole range of topics they advice on every day.
22 Sep 2023
A successful university environment such as CBS is often associated with academic pursuits, but campus life extends far beyond the classroom. At CBS Quiz Time, a student society motivated by creative thinking and social engagement, students join in a refreshing range of creativity, excitement, and social interaction. CBS WIRE talked to Celine Møller-Andersen to find out about the society’s vision, strategies and the factors that are driving its rapid expansion.
22 Sep 2023
Employees and union representatives have posed many questions in the wake of the 17 August announcement of a firing round. In this interview, University Director Arnold Boon explains how Senior Management has been working with the budget and a change of financial strategy since the fall of 2022, and why layoffs are now necessary.
11 Sep 2023
Qiuzhi Huang
If you believe that going on exchange is difficult, you might be surprised to learn that there is a space for everyone. Grades and points from extra-curricular activities do matter to some extent, but even with grades at the lower end of the spectrum, an exchange trip is within reach.
18 Nov 2022
Algorithms have a hold on the stock markets that has fuelled the need for regulation. But how do we regulate what we don’t understand? The second generation of trading algorithms are designing their own investment strategies – and they are so complicated that we are unable to understand them.
12 Sep 2022
BOOK REVIEW: Read about new methods for managing stress in working life.
22 Oct 2021
Two researchers tell the story of how the pandemic completely altered their research topic and how they dealt with it.
23 Sep 2021
BOOK REVIEW: Scapegoating the finance sector has become a national sport. Imagine, banks are daring to charge negative interest. But much of the criticism is based on prejudice, claim two professors.
17 May 2021
