From July 21 to 24, Dr. Isabel Studer Noguez, founding director of the Global Institute for Sustainability at EGADE Business School del Tecnológico de Monterrey, participated in the first Global Network Week for Faculty, an initiative of the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, which brought together representatives of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and representatives of 11 international business schools members of the GNAM to foster collaboration between academics in the area of ​​sustainability and with business leaders.

The founding director of IGS stressed the importance of encouraging the creation of knowledge and research in the field of sustainability: "We need to get a better understanding of how the new demographics and the changing global system in terms of power and emerging economies are going to be affecting our ability to actually address very complex issues such as climate change and the increasing scarcity of key resources like water and energy."

Dr. Isabel Studer Noguez also participated this summer in other high-level international events which promote alliances between businesses and sustainability projects, such as the Climate Investment Funds 2014 Partnership Forum, in Jamaica, the Centers Workshop 2014 of the Network for Business and Sustainability, celebrated at Harvard Business School, and the World Environmental Center (WEC) Gold Medal Colloquium, in Washington, D.C.

On June 23, Dr. Studer was invited to the Climate Investment Funds 2014 Partnership Forum, a high-level event organized by the Climate Investment Fund, an organization of the World Bank. The forum was celebrated this year in Jamaica with the purpose of connecting financial entities with projects that can promote the transition to low-carbon economies.

With the epigraph “MNCs and SMEs working together: Sustainable supply chains for the future,” Dr. Studer participated in a high-level panel on the topic of sustainable value chains and collaboration between multinational companies and small and medium enterprises.

Together with Dr. Gerardo Lozano, general manager of SUSTENTUS, and Prof. Francisco Layrisse, coordinator of SUSTENTUS, Dr. Studer also participated from June 25 to 27 in a workshop organized by the Network for Business and Sustainability at Harvard Business School (USA), an initiative led by Tima Bansal, professor at the Ivy School of Business of Western University (Canada).

This international network of academic experts and business leaders work together with the communities of sustainability centers, among which is the Global Institute for Sustainability, to generate new ideas on the practice of sustainable businesses so that leaders will be better equipped to make decisions in the area of sustainablity.

With the participation of 66 representatives of sustainability centers at business schools at 53 universities in 18 countries, the workshop was successful in creating links between the participants, promoting mututal learning and expanding the opportunities for collaboration.

Dr. Studer also joined the World Environmental Center (WEC) Gold Medal Colloquium in a session on linking companies and universities, together with other world leaders on the topic of sustainability in the private sector: David Etzwiler, CEO of Siemens Foundation, Sebastian Patta, vice-president of Human Resources of Volkswagen and Theresa A. Maldonado, director of the Division of Engineering Education and Centers of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

In the colloquium, celebrated on May 16 in Washington, D.C., top global companies such as SC Johnson, Ingersoll Rand, Marks & Spencer and McDonald's, participated in order to establish strategic relationships with universities to promote the agenda of sustainability.