Environmental Transformations

On 22 January 2020, the School of Management and Innovation held the final session of its core course, The Great Transition, during which 12 finalist groups presented their projects in front of a jury.

Involved in the association Sciences Po Environnement (FR) since her first year at Sciences Po, Carole Meffre is the coordinator of the Paris campus chapter today, and a master’s student at the School of Public Affairs. She discusses the vision and the challenges of this flagship fixture of campus life which is celebrating its 12th year in 2020.

For the fifth edition of the Paris School of International Affairs’ Youth & Leaders Summit, held on 20 January 2020, distinguished guest speakers and students explored how our societies and communities may continue to prosper while facing important transformations due to climate change. 

Why are small islands more vulnerable to the global and major ordeal of climate change? How do they face this huge challenge and what can we learn from their experience? These are among the crucial questions examined by Carola Klöck and Michael Fink in their recently coedited volume entitled Dealing with Climate Change on Small Islands: Toward Effective and Sustainable Adaptation, published by Universitätsverlag Göttingen. This interview was originally published on the CERI website.

Mas Mahmud and Leen Youssef, former refugees and alumni of Sciences Po, transformed their experiences into a mission to help displaced persons while taking action to counter climate change. Interview.

At the start of the 2020-2021 academic year, Sciences Po will be offering a new interdisciplinary dual bachelor’s degree, the “BASc”, or the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, combining the study of hard science with the social sciences and humanities. In partnership with multiple French universities, this dual degree is the first of its kind in France. Taught over four years, the aim of these programmes is to build the tools to analyse and act upon global challenges of the 21st century. Two of the programmes within the BASc focus particularly on the ecological transition.

The holiday season is approaching and with it, a wave of overconsumption and, unfortunately, a lot of waste. As online shopping becomes easier and in-store prices drop to compete with websites, the vast amount of packaging and plastic waste that is generated each year increases, peaking during the period from Black Friday to Christmas. As of 2017, France generated the third-highest amount of packaging waste in Europe (FR), with an average of 173 kgs per person.

Founder and CEO of Sustain Labs Paris, Miniya Chatterji is renowned in the field of corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability. She has previously worked as a policy analyst for Jérôme Monod, Chief Adviser to the late President Jacques Chirac, as well as for the World Economic Forum and as Chief Sustainability Officer at Jindal Steel and Power Ltd., an Indian energy and steel conglomerate.

How can Sciences Po become a more sustainable university and workplace? An online consultation, "Sustainable Campus" has been made to gather your ideas, proposals and votes to help Sciences Po become a more ecologically responsible university. This consultation is one of the pillars of our Climate Action: Make it Work initiative and concerns all of the Sciences Po campuses.

American author and economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin was at Sciences Po on 17 October, 2019, for a conference and debate centred around the theme of his latest book, The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth. Predicting the collapse of the contemporary energy regime, he outlines a novel and ambitious plan in his book, and he shared some of his ideas and arguments with those in attendance. In particular, he warned them of the dangers of clinging to antiquated industrial and economic models that did not face up to the realities of today. 

On your marks, get set… the start of the new academic year is upon us! Some students will be taking their first steps at Sciences Po as freshmen, others will be returning to familiar ground. Like every year, a back-to-school ceremony is held on each Undergraduate College campus and for each of the seven graduate schools. This year, the central theme of these ceremonies is the future of our planet. See details below.

Xavier Timbeau, Sciences Po – USPC; Adeline Gueret, Sciences Po – USPC; Aurélien Saussay, Sciences Po – USPC et Paul Malliet, Sciences Po – USPC

Mary Robinson, now President of the Elders and climate justice activist, was the seventh President of Ireland, and the first woman ever to hold this office. She also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002 and as Chancellor of the Trinity College Dublin for twenty years. In June 2019, she was the guest of honour at the Paris School of International Affairs’ graduation ceremony. In her talk, she gives graduates 3 key steps to do their part in the fight against climate change. Watch the video to find out what they are.

Despite an overarching negativity where China and the environment are concerned, it is set to become the leading power in the green economy. However, it is the political elective which must make the policies to make China’s future green. As a one-party-state there is very little green opposition should environmental reforms not be put into practice.

In honour of World Oceans Day and Oceans Week at Sciences Po, read this interview of Eve Isambourg, a Sciences Po student and oceans activist. Eve spent her third year abroad raising awareness on oceanic issues around the world, and spoke at the United Nations in New York defending our planet's oceans. (Interview originally published in 2018).

Stop & Go is a student association at Sciences Po that is bringing hitchhiking back into fashion. Trips, weekends away, or a hitchhiking festival - so many fun activities carrying an ecological message. Interview with the President of Stop & Go, Apolline Tarbé de Saint-Hardouin. 

France is currently one of the leading global users of pesticides in agriculture. Yet, nobody is currently in a position to assess the human health cost of the massive use of pesticides in agriculture. This situation is even more surprising given that the dangers of pesticides have long been studied by the two disciplines that are central to the field of environmental health: toxicology and epidemiology. Jean-Noël Jouzel, CNRS research fellow at the Centre for the Sociology of Organisations, discusses his findings in his article in Cogito, our research newsletter: Short summary 

While environmental issues weren’t at the core of the campaign for the U.S. midterm elections, Donald Trump’s climate-change denialism and full assault on the regulations put in place under Barack Obama have generated a broad and often effective response. Transformed into a referendum on Trump and his presidency, the midterm campaign was dominated by issues that amplified the ideological divide and fuelled the President’s demagoguery.

Tēnaka, a social business founded by Anne-Sophie Roux, recent graduate of the Sciences Po School of Research and supported by the Centre for Entrepreneurship, is the winner of the 2021 Alliance Social Enterprise Challenge! This social entrepreneurship competition organized by the Columbia Alliance awards a prize of U$25,000 to support the development of a social venture project. Thanks to this prize, Tēnaka will scale its solutions to regenerate the ocean and develop its partnerships within the French ultramarine territories of the Indian Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The social business, launched on the benches of Sciences Po in 2018, is now being accelerated by the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, a US-based organization supporting promising startups through its intensive Ocean Solutions Accelerator Program.

Tommaso Venturini, research fellow at the Sciences Po Medialab, is the scientific coordinator of EMAPS, the only social sciences project among the 12 winners of the 2015 "Étoiles de l’Europe" prize (Fr) that recognises research teams for their commitment to Europe.