Corporate Social Responsibility: A Busy Weekend at the School

March 17, 2010

The HEC Montréal MBA students association organized a weekend of activities on the theme of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development.

The event, held at the School, opened on Friday, March 12, with the second edition of Beyond CSR (CSR for “corporate social responsibility”), organized jointly with the MBA Student Association of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Some 190 participants attended lectures by business leaders and key figures in the field of sustainable development. The topics covered during the day included redefining the concept of profit, concrete examples of companies that have “gone green,” tools for implementing and tracking corporate sustainable development initiatives, companies’ role in connection with biodiversity, and challenges for companies working in the primary sector and renewable energy.

Case competition

On Saturday, four teams of MBA students from Montreal universities and a team from Toronto faced off in a case competition on the future of renewable energy. They had four hours to conduct their analysis and prepare their recommendations, which they then presented to a jury consisting of Associate Professor Pierre-Olivier Pineau and Assistant Professor David Oliver, of HEC Montréal, and a number of judges from the energy industry: Sylvain Audette, from Gaz Métro, Darius Coté, from Imperial Oil, Brice Garnier, from Ernst & Young, and Mustapha Ouyed, from Golder Associates. The teams made their presentations before an audience in the IBM amphitheatre.

The HEC Montréal team took first place, winning the $1,000 prize donated by Imperial Oil. Second and third places went to the teams from Concordia University and the DeGroote School of Business, respectively.

The weekend closed with an address by ecologist Cynthia Lane, PhD.