There are decisions, in the field of sustainability, that must be made today. By the way, now. But if whoever is tasked with taking them hasn’t yet caught on to the sense of urgency, chances are he won’t. The consequences, these, will end up being revealed, sooner or later, to the detriment of the organizations that did not adapt in time. Knowing this, Nova SBE has been promoting a set of initiatives aimed at increasing knowledge in the area of sustainability, such as the Sustainability Journey, an event that took place between June 20 and July 1, at the Carcavelos campus. , which brought together more than 300 participants, 30 companies and 60 speakers, in some 40 sessions.
According to Pedro Brito, Vice Dean of Executive Education and Business Transformation Nova SBE, the bet must necessarily go through increasing knowledge about sustainability, because “today we have many decision makers who should be making investments and defining their strategic plan taking into account the needs for greater sustainability of their products, their solutions, their organization, and with a positive impact on society, but they are not doing it”. And the reason they don’t is simple: “It’s because there’s a certain lack of literacy in this area.” In the words of Nova SBE’s manager training manager, “the fact that this level of maturity does not exist means that there is no sense of urgency”.
However, the fact of not deciding accordingly in the present brings a cost that will only be known in the future. And it is that, as Pedro Brito underlines, not only “the next generation is super attentive to this point”, but the whole of society, in general, being more exposed -formally or informally- to the issue of sustainability, ends up conditioning its options “This will give each of us much more power to make decisions related to sustainability, in the products we choose, in the brands we interact with, in the people we work with and even in the companies we work with. we are willing to work. make alliances”, he exemplifies.
The future of education also passes through here
Sustainability is one of Nova SBE’s four major commitments, along with innovation, data and technology and humanity – integrating undergraduate and master’s curricula, as well as executive training. The choice of these areas is related to the profile that a manager should have, from the perspective of the teaching staff. “I can be the best manager in the world, but if I don’t understand the impact of the human dimension and data and technology I have, the importance of innovation, and, transversally, sustainability, whether social, government or environmental, then I will be a bad administrator”, explains Pedro Brito.
In line with the vision and strategy of the school, the Conference on Sustainability aimed precisely at looking at the issue of sustainability, seeking not only to “understand the level of maturity of companies in relation to the issues presented”, but also “to create a community and start building, together, a more systemic journey from 2023, which will include a research dimension”. According to the official, the objective is that the results of this research are then used “to innovate through new tools, frames, systems, processes that can help companies to make this transition process”. At the same time, “programs that democratize, as far as possible, access to knowledge and quality education related to the issue of sustainability in general” will also be created.
What Nova SBE intends, with this and other initiatives, is to carry out collective work with several companies and organizations –“together and with interdependencies”, Pedro Brito points out– to, together, co-create the path of transformation. “I have to create the conditions so that my success, in the field of sustainability transformation, depends on the success of others and so on. Because, when we do this, we will collectively walk in the same direction, allowing us to promote more sustainable public policies, more impact on society and greater return on investment for the organizations themselves”, emphasizes the Vice Dean of Executive Education and Business Transformation.
Homogeneous and mature understanding
One of the participants in the Sustainability Conference was João Lavos, Positive Impact Leader of Leroy Merlin, who makes a “very positive assessment” of the initiative, first of all because “it allowed us to bring together a group of people interested in this subject with a group of specialists with a lot of knowledge to share”. “In a subject that is not yet mature, the exchange of ideas and the collective contribution to sustainability literacy are important”, he says, also considering that “there is a lot of talk about sustainability, but few people really understand what is at stake. . and because”.
Of the two weeks of the event, the person in charge of the sustainability area especially highlights “the understanding” regarding the immersion in the topic of the company where he works: “After doing this training, it became even more evident that it is of vital importance that the members of the board, but also the second lines, can have access to this type of training, because it allows a very strong homogeneity of understanding compared to the time invested.” Thus, “in 2023, Leroy Merlin will be present again and in a reinforced way”, he guarantees.
For João Lavos, “sustainability is the way to ensure a future”, and “the paradigm shift is the only way we have to guarantee that we can continue with our existence”. To achieve this, he argues that “the development model that we have to find needs the action of all, governments, companies, citizens and the scientific community, because only with joint vision and action will we be able to achieve this paradigm shift.”
SingularityU Portugal Summit: Supermassive: an event with an exponential impact
Thinking about the future and taking the appropriate steps towards the necessary transformation is also the budget of the SingularityU Portugal Summit: Supermassive event, which will take place on October 27 and 28, at the Nova SBE campus, in Carcavelos. As Diogo Lobo de Carvalho, Executive Director of SingularityU Portugal at Nova SBE, explains, “Currently, any company or organization is undergoing a transformation process, be it energetic, cultural, digital or otherwise, and there is a sense of urgency that it needs transmitted to the leaders of these organizations. So Supermassive will try to convey that sense of urgency and support companies in the transformation process.” Above all, he makes it clear that the messages that will be transmitted there are necessary at the moment we live in: “We are not going to say what people want to hear, we are going to say what they have to hear.”
About ten international speakers from Singularity University will be present at the event, each with extensive knowledge and experience in areas ranging from innovation to energy, mobility, neuroscience, the future of work or cryptocurrencies, among others (see outstanding).
To contextualize the relevance of the event, Diogo Lobo de Carvalho recalls that Singularity University is an American company, founded in 2008, in Silicon Valley, “and whose main premise is the resolution of the great problems of humanity – in society, in organizations and in the individual – through exponential technology and the exponentiality of technology”. “It is easy to see that today we have access to more and more capital, technology, training and education, but how can we use all of this to solve the big problems that we have?” This is the question Singularity University is asking. to respond, specifically in Portugal, through the presence it maintains in our country, through Nova SBE.
An event and an opportunity
As Diogo Lobo de Carvalho points out, this event “is an event and also an opportunity”, considering the simultaneous presence, in our country, of such a large number of consecrated speakers. “Themes obviously have a common thread, but each organization, company and person will associate themselves with the theme that interests them the most,” he explains. At the same time, and bearing in mind that some of the main partners of Nova SBE and the Portuguese society will be meeting there, this will also be an event of networks important. “We want it to be an almost organic moment, where the participants have the opportunity to absorb the knowledge acquired during the event and discuss, among themselves, relevant issues for each one and for society in general”, says the director of SingularityU Portugal, and adds that, in addition, “the leaders of the organizations present at the event can thus bring some points of the program to the center of their organizations and promote, themselves and during the event, discussions with some of the Speakers”.
Above all, it highlights that this event “fits within Nova SBE’s strategy and vision of assuming a much more sustainable role, at a national and European level”, and that the debate will be “the process of transforming companies, but carried out in a sustainable way”. ”.
Source: Observadora
