Bac+4/5 training: the time for the ecological transition has come

In the student ranks, the question is no longer whether you want to have a positive impact on the planet, but how.

Léa Leberre, an agri-food engineer by training, hesitated for a long time about the direction she wanted to take in her career.

“I had taken the Environment specialty in my course, but this choice lacked alignment with the criteria I set for myself.

My impact was not enough,” she says.

Without opting for the same radicalism as her counterparts at Agro ParisTech, who surprised last year by refusing to receive their diploma and “the destructive jobs” which they believed were destined for them, Léa decided to continue her studies.

She joined the MSc (Master of Science) Sustainability Transformation which has just opened its doors at Essec.

"I'm here to clarify my view of the world, to understand where I can be most useful and what biodiversity strategies are working," she explains.

Seeks maximum efficiency

This question crosses the minds of many young people: where will my action be most effective?

Lisa Fleury, now a student at Kedge Business School, was no exception.

"After an economics course, I looked for a way to combine my taste for numbers and my desire to participate in building a more ecological society," she says.

It seems to him that she would have a maximum impact in what constitutes, in her opinion, the heart of the reactor: finance.

“It is not a question of fighting the financiers, but of changing the axis of the investments”, underlines the young woman who has just been hired on a permanent contract in the rating agency where she did her internship.

New ways to teach

For formations, the transition is not so simple.

"It's about rethinking everything, finding speakers who already integrate CSR dimensions into their profession and changing our teaching methods", lists Nathalie Patrat, director of the future ESG Act school, which will open its doors in October 2023. On the menu of the courses offered, three well-known sectors (marketing, purchasing and management) revisited in the light of societal and environmental issues.

"This supposes more practice and going beyond disciplines to confront technical, regulatory and scientific aspects", she lists.

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After having launched a first structure which did not meet with the expected success, the ESG group reviewed its copy by offering a broader vision of CSR.

“These subjects cannot be taught trade by trade, in isolation.

To help a company transform, you need to understand its entire chain of activities and its ecosystem”, explains the director of ESG Act.

Engineering and business are not the only areas affected.

In La Réunion, for example, the Vatel group has opened the Experiential Tourism specialty, to train hotel managers of a new kind.

Here, CSR no longer passes (only) through less energy-consuming hotels, but through "the transformation of the tourist into a discoverer", explains Ghislaine Lhuissier, director of Vatel Réunion.

New behaviors

This means reviewing certain reflexes, favoring cultural immersion and encounters.

“Going to eat in a starred restaurant is good.

But going shopping at the market with a cook and preparing a vanilla duck with him while talking, this has never happened to you", illustrates the director of Vatel Réunion, who tries to associate in each activity idea "a experience, the pleasure of learning a skill and discovering the culture of a country in a different way".

All in a way that respects nature.

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“If we go to see whales, we do so on a sailboat, equipped with small cameras provided to us by an association responsible for their protection.

In fact, we collect data for her,” explains Ghislaine Lhuissier.

Then, she sets the objective of these students, who come from different Vatel schools around the world: “to preserve throughout their lives the reflex of looking at their environment differently and inventing experiences that give meaning to visitors' stays”.

Like in their studies.