New sustainability track at LUSEM attracts big names

The Sustainable Future Hub at Lund University School of Economics and Management is now starting the Change Maker Future Track. The goal: to offer students at master’s level practical experience of sustainability work. Aiming to take the University motto of “understanding, explaining and improving” to the next level, the track has four equally important parts: students, challenges, coaches and inspiration.

The track is a extra-curricular part of 18 handpicked master students’ education. The students come from a wide range of master’s programmes at LUSEM, giving them the added bonus of meeting others with the similar interests, but different areas of expertise.

The participants were chosen out of 70 applicants. During the Change Maker Future Track, they will work on real life challenges from Sony, Barnfonden and the City of Lund with the support of Senior lecturer Stein Kleppestø and coaches from the industry.

Stein Kleppestø states:

"Being a change maker for a sustainable future requires the ability to comprehend complexity and uncertainty. Moving from an unsustainable to a sustainable world is as all about finding solutions to wicked problems. In our program we aim to develop our students’ maturity and change maker skills by working on very challenging, real life needs for change."

Challenges and coaches from the industry

The  challenges come from  Sony, Barnfonden and City of Lund and are all within the area of sustainability. The students have met their challenge owners at a kick-off in September, at which the students had the opportunity to ask questions and get to know both the problems and the organisations better.  During the track the students will have regular contact with their challenge owners to keep them up to date on the progress and get feedback.

The students will also get help from committed external coaches, who will enable the students to see the challenges from an industry perspective. The coaches all have experience in driving change processes and sustainable development. Students are offered a wide selection of coaches in different businesses, from Kärhs, IKEA, SoPact, Accelerace, Oatly, Tetra Pak, PhD Copenhagen Business School, Bilburry, Verify agency of Sweden to Nordea. 

Inspiration

Inspiration and sharing ideas play a big part in change, which is why specially invited guests will speak on the theme "How to be a Change Maker". Through these thought-provoking webinars, people with interesting approaches to sustainability discuss a given topic with researchers from Lund University. The researchers will comment from their perspective, and act as debaters with the guests. There has been two talks so far, first climate activist and sustainability entrepreneur Rebecka Carlsson spoke on how we can stop climate change quickly enough and giving good examples of ground breaking sustainable business models.

In the second, the theme was pioneering leadership. When Global Chief Creative Officer John Schoolcraft started at Oatly, he completely eliminated the marketing department. Instead, he created the Department of Mind control, which allows creators to be a natural part of all types of meetings in the company. John Schoolcraft’s conversation partner was Carys Egan-Wyer, teacher and researcher at the School of Economics and Management. If you missed out on the talk, watch it here at LUSEM’s YouTube channel.

There will be more inspirational talks during the track, sign up to the Sustainable Future Hub newsletter by contacting martina.oxling@ehl.lu.se to know when and where.

Funding

Change Maker Future Track is in its early stages, but the response from both students and the industry has been very promising. This shows that there is a need and interest for hands-on approaches to sustainability. Pro Vice Chancellor for External Engagement at Lund University Kristina Eneroth says:

“Driving change from a sustainable point of view is becoming more and more crucial for future leaders. The Change Maker Future Track will provide our students with a unique opportunity of working with real-world challenges. We are most grateful for the engagement of companies, organisations, coaches and of course for the endowment from Sparbanken Skåne/Sparbanksstiftelsen Finn that made it all possible. The future is about to begin!”