The Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU) held successfully a case championship on the topic of sustainable development. The final of the ESG Lab and an expert discussion on the relevance of the sustainable development agenda took place on June 6 at the Mikhailovskaya Dacha campus. The event was attended by students and researchers, as well as and representatives of government, business and public organizations.

26 GSOM SPbU student teams (120 people) were working on solving one of several real business problems related to ecology, human rights policy or inclusion for a month. Cases for the championship were provided by 6 organizations in three areas: Environmental, Social, Governance.

According to the participants, the interest in the project of such large companies as Uralchem, Metalloinvest, Rabota-i, X5, Baltika and others confirms that the process of implementing the principles of sustainable development in Russian business has not stopped. Until recent times, one of the main drivers for the introduction of ESG practices by organizations was the relevant requirements from foreign investors and regulators. In addition, an important factor for this process was the involvement of Russian exporters in the global supply chains of purchasing companies actively promoting ESG practices among their suppliers, which also contributed to the spread of best practices in the Russian business environment. Now the launch of new environmental and social projects, as well as the improvement of management processes continues because top managers and investors see it as mechanisms that allow companies to be sustainable and successful in the long term.

“The concepts of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility have been included in the activities of GSOM SPbU since its inception. For 30 years, these values have run like a red thread through everything that happened at the Business School. Then there was a fashion for ESG, and we discussed the possibility of opening a specialized master's program. But in the end, we decided to embed ESG elements in different disciplines - this is a more reasonable approach. Risk managers, financiers, engineers must learn to look at their profession through the prism of sustainable development factors. Now, the hype has passed, but the work and results remain. The topics of sustainable development and social responsibility of companies have not gone away — they are still important for business,” said Olga Dergunova, Deputy President and Chairman of the Management Board of VTB Bank, Director of GSOM SPbU during the discussion.

“Today I was happy to plunge into the student environment, and I was very pleased to see that today's students — tomorrow's managers and leaders — share ESG values. When business practice is integrated into the theoretical base, which is given at the GSOM SPbU at the highest level, and students have the opportunity to try themselves in solving real problems, the result is impressive. I am sure that the solutions that the students proposed will be implemented and adopted to one degree or another. It is very important for companies to get a fresh look at the problems they face every day,” said Elena Kiyanova, Corporate Affairs Manager North of Philip Morris International affiliates in Russia.

“We live in a very turbulent time, when caring for the environment can go by the wayside or the third plan, that's why it is so important to create the most effective, sustainable, efficient, environmental programs and projects, which we did together with ESG lab at the case championship at GSOM SPbU,” said David Darchiev, Head of Sustainable Development and CSR, VOOP.

The participants of the championship, GSOM SPbU students, searched and analyzed data, made decisions in the face of limited and ambiguous information, and, as a result, presented their ideas to a commission consisting of business representatives, employees of the Business School and independent experts.

The first place in the Environmental and Social track was taken by a team of students from the Master's program "Smart City Management" Planet Party with a mobile application project to involve the population in solving the problem of environmental pollution with municipal solid waste. The case was provided by the All-Russian Society for the Conservation of Nature. (According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, about 70 million tons of MSW are generated in Russia every year, this figure increases by 3% every year, and only 5-7% of the garbage is recycled, the rest is sent to landfills).

The jury awarded the second place to Future Focus. The People's Choice Award went to Green Guardians.

The first place in the Governance track was won by the LELK team, which worked on solving the URALCHEM case. Companies need to motivate suppliers to comply with ESG requirements, and the students figured out how to achieve it.

“We have developed a set of measures. On the one hand, it would allow suppliers to be trained on how to properly comply with the ESG principles, and on the other hand, to involve them in this process. These are a series of educational events, the introduction of an ESG audit, the transfer of an ESG questionnaire that suppliers must fill out to a convenient online platform and a unique mentoring program for the implementation of a data collection system for calculating ESG indicators. It was a very interesting and difficult task that had to be combined with writing a term paper, but we did it,” said Ekaterina Gusarenko, a member of the LELK team, a second-year student of the State and Municipal Administration program at GSOM SPbU.

The second place in the track "Governance" was taken by the EE-EE team. Audience Award - Bulletin of Innovations.

The authors of the best projects got the opportunity to set off participation in the case championship against summer practice.

REFERENCE

ESG lab is a unique platform for interaction between students, the business community and government officials in solving problems in the field of sustainable development and social responsibility together with professional mentors from large companies. GSOM SPbU lecturers are developing a training course "Corporate Volunteering" and ESG marking course and final qualification papers to assess them from the point of view of social and environmental responsibility. The project is implemented with the support of Philip Morris International affiliates in Russia.

ESG (Eng. Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) - environmental, social and corporate governance.

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