Sustainability Strategy | London Business School

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Sustainability Strategy

In August 2025, London Business School launched its sustainability strategy for the next five years with the aim of strengthening our sustainability impact through our academic, engagement and operational activities. We will leverage our strengths to become a recognised leader in sustainability within business education.

The strategy was developed with input from over 200 members of our community – students, alumni, faculty and staff – and is supported by a detail action plan for the years ahead.

We will focus on three domains which we believe will help us deliver the greatest impact.

This domain contains two focus areas, each with a specific sustainability ambition:
1. Research
Research is the beating heart of London Business School. Supported by some of the world’s leading thinkers, research fuels our teaching, collaboration and conversations at the highest level. By producing rigorous and relevant world-class research, and developing exceptional scholars, we aim to influence the practice of business and management, shaping policy and fostering positive change in the global community.
LBS has a strong track record of sustainability-related faculty research
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Continue to produce research with a positive sustainability impact and to highlight the impact of this research on global sustainability goals.
We are working on:
Developing a SDG Tagging system for faculty research.
Continuing the impactful work of our Research Institutes
2. Teaching and learning
Since our founding in 1964, London Business School has consistently aimed to tackle the critical challenges of the time through our teaching and learning offering to students and participants. Our commitment to sustainability began over 50 years ago with the introduction of our first lecture on 'The Social Responsibility of Business', establishing a long-standing tradition in sustainability education.
In recent years, we have expanded our sustainability initiatives, offering a comprehensive approach across our degree programmes, executive education, and online learning experiences. Alongside dedicated sustainability courses, we ensure that students and participants have access to sustainability-inclusive curricula throughout the School.
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Equip current and future business leaders with the knowledge, skills and mindset needed to address the pressing sustainability challenges facing business and society.
This ambition is realised through our comprehensive offerings, including degree programmes, co-curricular activities, career services and guidance, as well as Executive Education and LBS Online programmes.
We are working on:
Continuing to embed sustainability into our degree programmes, including core courses, electives, co-curricular activities, and programme updates.
Empowering career growth by incorporating sustainability expertise into career learning and insights.
Increasing Executive Education access and use of sustainability expertise as well as learning and teaching assets in our work with corporations and their people.
Embedding sustainability into the design of new digital products and curation of knowledge resources, including LBS Online courses, teaching cases and library materials.
Integrating sustainability into our Forever Learning alumni offering.
This domain contains two focus areas, each with a specific sustainability ambition:
Local engagement
Global engagement
Local engagement
Central to our purpose is to positively impact our local community through supporting local talent and helping address community challenges.
We believe we have a responsibility to contribute to the communities around our campuses and have demonstrated a positive impact on the communities near our London campus.
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Create a lasting positive social impact in the communities where LBS operates.
We are working on:
Building on previous efforts and enhancing our sustainability impact in its local London community.
Identifying and developing opportunities to engage with the community in Dubai to make a local difference.
Global engagement
At London Business School we recognise the importance of our role in helping business drive global impact.
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Engage globally by amplifying and applying LBS research, harnessing the power of our community and developing partnerships to address global sustainability challenges in business and create a more sustainable future.
We are working on:
Forging partnerships and collaborations to address sustainability challenges effectively.
Driving practical solutions through our thought leadership and research application.
Utilising our convening power to tackle global sustainability challenges.
Communicating LBS' contributions and ongoing sustainability efforts to highlight our impact.
A practical approach to driving global impact is by nurturing our students’ innovative business ideas with our Incubator and Launchpad programmes.
By collaborating with partners and external bodies, our research can be applied to provide practical solutions to complex, global sustainability challenges.
This domain contains four focus areas, each with a specific sustainability ambition:
Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging and Wellbeing
Diversity, inclusion, belonging, and wellbeing are central to sustainability because they foster a collaborative and equitable environment, enabling diverse perspectives to drive innovative solutions for complex global challenges. By prioritising these values, London Business School seeks to enhance resilience and adaptability, ensuring long-term sustainable impact.
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Continue embedding Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB) and wellbeing into LBS’ organisational culture, fostering inclusive, equitable and impactful solutions for a sustainable future.
We are working on:
Continuing to advance diversity and inclusion at LBS by focusing on improving access and opportunities for under-represented groups.
Continuing to enhance diversity, inclusion, and belonging at LBS.
Maintain a strong commitment to fostering good mental health and wellbeing within the LBS community through a strategic approach.
Make sustainability a key part of LBS' culture through education and awareness activities.
Path to Net Zero
London Business School is committed to achieving Net Zero for Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040 and will work with stakeholders on reducing Scope 3 emissions. Our overall goal is to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050, with an ambition to bring this date forward.
Since 2011, LBS has reduced its Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 49.2%. We are also measuring our Scope 3 emissions (for more information click here.)
But there is more to do.
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Develop and advance a pathway towards LBS' Net Zero commitment, setting an example for our sector and business.
LBS’ on campus environment
London Business School has campuses in London and Dubai. One of our sustainability aims is to make sure that the way our campuses are run is environmentally sustainable. Our School-wide operations include everything from our food and dining to our waste and recycling, our water, transportation, and the energy we use. Each of these areas has increased its efforts to be more sustainable.
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Continue to adopt sustainability best practices in LBS operations, essential to achieving our sustainability goals and maintaining our leadership role in business education.
Sustainable Procurement
London Business School is committed to integrating sustainability factors into the procurement of goods and services.
Over the next 5 years (2025-30), our ambition is to:
Build a supply chain that prioritises responsible sourcing and supports LBS’ broader sustainability objectives, reinforcing our commitment to sustainable business practices.
We are working on:
Aligning LBS’ procurement policies and processes to good practice sustainability principles.

STARS framework

We have adopted the STARS framework to guide our strategic approach to embedding sustainability across the School.

We strive to ensure that our approach to sustainability aligns with what the world needs. LBS has adopted the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) framework to assess our current performance and inform our strategic approach to embedding sustainability across the School.

The STARS framework is a globally recognised reporting standard for higher education institutions. It provides a structured, transparent, and verifiable account of an institution’s sustainability performance across four key domains: (i) academics, (ii) engagement, (iii) operations, and (iv) planning and administration.

While our sustainability strategy is informed by the STARS framework, it does not match it exactly. We have adopted a bespoke approach tailored to our context and have followed it closely to ensure our Sustainability Strategy is comprehensive across all material areas of impact.

Adapting STARS to the School

We used the framework to:

Assess current strengths and opportunities at the School across our strategy domains.
Identify key domains of focus within the final sustainability strategy.
Identify key disclosures across all domains and focus areas to track progress on our impact.