As per defined in its strategic plan Confluences 2025, emlyon business school became a benefit corporation (société à mission) on July 26th, 2021 with the vote of its Supervisory Board.

emlyon’s purpose

Now registered in its legal status, the School's raison d'être aims at providing: “Life-long training and support to informed individuals able to transform organizations, for a fairer society, with more solidarity and respect for the planet”

This raison d'être embodies the convictions of emlyon:

  • Because efficiency needs to be combined with responsibility and humility;
  • Because companies and economy need to also provide social and environmental justice;
  • Because the transformations to be carried out require science, conscience and audacity;

We need to find new ways to lead and manage for the common good.

As a benefit corporation, the School is committed to pursue the following objectives in terms of training, research and in its daily operations.

In terms of training :

  • To nurture the entrepreneurship and commitment spirit using a pedagogy based on experience and experimentation;
  • To develop critical thinking and creativity via pluralism and knowledge interconnections;
  • To guarantee skills' improvement so that learners can take up tomorrow's social and environmental challenges;
  • To allow each and every one to find out about oneself, to anticipate wide-open professional horizons and build on one's employability.

In terms of research :

  • To promote the academic freedom and develop plural research
  • To play an ever more active role in the world's scientific conversation and in the socio-economic debates, by taking a stand on issues relative to value creation, and social and environmental justice
  • To develop our training programs against newly created knowledge.

In terms of operations :

  • To turn our School into an innovative organization in terms of diversity and environmental protection
  • To reflect in our practices a management model respectful of people and contributing to their development
  • To commit all of the School's stakeholders to an active community with a common ground, emlyon's educational project.

The Benefit Corporation's governance body: the Steering Committee

Members of the Steering Committee will need to make sure that the School's purpose is properly enforced thereby contributing to achieving our mission. The Steering Committee is an independent body, in charge of following up the implementation of its purpose. Its role is to provide insights from the various view- points of the whole emlyon community. With great profile diversity, it is made of representatives of the School's various stakeholders: academic experts, students, staff representatives, representatives of the socio-economic world and of civil society:

Bénédicte Bost, Social & Environmental Responsibility Director, and now Purpose Manager, in charge of coordinating and steering the implementation of the mission, in relation with the Steering Committee, the School's governance bodies and internal and external stakeholders.

The annual Steering Committee's report

The emlyon Steering Committee has published its 2023-23 report, in which it reports on the School's achievements in relation to its statutory goals and expresses its opinion on the execution of the mission and the completion of the objectives.

Read the Steering Committee’s report

History:

In this document, the Steering Committee reports on the first year of the School's commitment to its strategic journey as a Benefit Corporation. This report covers the definition of the challenges inherent to the mission, how the strategy and organization are structured around a common compass, as well as the first achievements endeavored over 2021-2022.

Steering Committee's 2021-2022 report | 2021-2022 notification by the Organisme Tiers Indépendant (in French)