Corporate Knights, the magazine for clean capitalism, and the Schulich School of Business at York University have launched their second annual Business for a Better World Case Competition.
The competition will challenge MBA student teams from around the world to improve the sustainability performance of a corporate case subject relative to their industry peers. The 2014 case subject was Suncor Energy. The three finalists were required to present their detailed business plans in front of a high-profile judging panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the team from the Stockholm School of Economics walking away with first prize.
This year, the case subject will come from the pharmaceutical industry. Case details will be disclosed to all registered teams on Oct. 16. The three finalists, determined after two rounds of judging, will get to compete in Davos in late January.
“Our inaugural case competition was a great success, with final teams getting a unique opportunity to present in front of the case subject’s CEO, which last year was Suncor Energy Chief Executive Steve Williams,” said Tyler Hamilton, editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights. “The 2015 competition will build on last year’s success, and comes at a time when more companies than ever are working to raise their sustainability performance and profile.”
Student teams will be asked to apply 12 of the most widely disclosed and tracked sustainability indicators to the case subject, making the contest unique among the world’s responsible business competitions. Teams will be challenged to identify priority social, environmental and governance (ESG) metrics for the case company and improve its performance (relative to industry peers) on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, an annual benchmark ranking that has been produced by Corporate Knights since 2005.
The objective is to get students familiar with commonly accepted and emerging sustainability indicators and to build a case for what steps a company can take to become an ESG outperformer in its sector and top-ranked among peers.
MBA students can find details and register online at corporateknights.com/affiliates/2015contest.