Sustainability Centre Leaders shared knowledge and built community through bi-monthly virtual meetings. Find session outputs below.
Business school sustainability centres are an essential part of meeting today’s sustainability challenges. Many advance common sustainability goals through research, teaching and outreach. They also face common challenges – from identifying a core focus to funding and scaling centres.
The NBS Sustainability Centres Community (SCC) exists to connect and support these centres in their work. It’s a network of almost 200 centres, at universities on every continent but Antarctica.
2023-2024 Knowledge Exchange Series
In 2023-2024, the SCC held a new space for peer support: “open space” discussions. Every other month, centre leaders gathered to exchange knowledge on shared challenges and opportunities associated with running sustainability centres.
This series builds on a discussion at the 2023 SCC Workshop of the “nuts and bolts” of running a centre, where leaders identified priority questions and possible solutions.
The format: During each session, participants suggest discussion topics and then break into groups to share advice and experiences, with space to report back key learnings. Live topic identification and changing participants makes for relevant, timely, and fresh discussions.
The final session of the knowledge exchange series took place on December 11, 2024. Stay tuned for new opportunities for connection in 2025!
For now, explore past session outputs below.
Discussion Topic Examples
Past Event Outputs
October 11, 2023
In breakout groups, participants talked about:
- Centre revenue/funding
- Setting up a centre
- Aligning with interests of upper management
- Fostering interdisciplinary approaches
- Using business school levers to maximize impact
Read the notes from the breakout groups on each topic here.
Watch participants share their key takeaways here.
Dec 13, 2023
Find notes on the two major breakout topics from this session here:
Feb 14, 2024
In this session, with a smaller group, we stayed in plenary to discuss these three topics:
- Key issues in starting a new centre
- Best size for a sustainability centre; ways of organizing so that funding is feasible
- University data collection and management – collecting sustainability info for rankings etc.
Watch the recorded discussion here for insights shared by participants on each topic.
April 10, 2024
Read the notes from the discussion for insights on these topics:
- How to develop centre strategy
- Accessing funding, including developing the necessary skills
- How to get buy in to (university) susty strategy
- How to engage students in extra-curricular activities post-pandemic
- What centres do!
June 12, 2024
Read the notes from the discussion for insights on these topics:
- Collaboration with Industry
- Faculty Engagement/Training
- How to deal with students’ concerns that sustainability efforts aren’t enough
Watch the recording to hear introductions and top priorities for session participants, and key takeaways from breakout discussions.
Oct 11, 2024
Read the notes from the discussion for insights and resources on these topics:
- Supporting students’ sustainability careers
- Understanding and developing students’ sustainability competencies
Watch the session recording to hear the live discussion.
Dec 11, 2024
This special end-of-year session had a different focus than our standard knowledge exchange: centre participants celebrated – and learned from – one another’s successes.
- Read about achievements and learnings from 14 Centre participants in this summary document.
- Watch the session recording here.
Thanks to everyone who has joined this series and shared knowledge among the Sustainability Centres Community!
More resources running a sustainability centre
Looking for answers now? You might find them in these existing compilations of SCC wisdom:
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- How to Run a Sustainability Centre. Based on discussions from the 2023 SCC workshop, this article answers some key recurring questions sustainability centre leaders ask.
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- How to Start a Sustainability Centre This startup guide is targeted toward leaders considering starting a sustainability centre, or those aiming to get a new one off the ground.
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- Finding Centre Funding Struggling to fund your research centre? This webinar brings together leaders to share top funding tips.
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