Copenhagen Business School: Europe’s Sustainability Vanguard

It’s called the Scandinavian teaching model: a focus on student-centered learning, in an atmosphere that encourages curiosity and critical thinking and emphasizes teamwork and collaboration. It works best in-person, ideally with a small cohort of students.

When the Scandinavian model is employed in a curriculum infused with sustainable, responsible, and ethical business principles, at a school that offers the only full-time MBA program in Scandinavia — then you’ve just described the Copenhagen MBA.

“We see a lot of student demand for sustainability, and this theme is naturally driven by being in Copenhagen, which is seen as a green and sustainable city,” says Andreas Rasche, professor of Business in Society and associate dean of the full-time MBA at Copenhagen Business School. “That makes it easy for us to take students to relevant businesses, so students know that this is not just talk, but there is real action behind it.”

Andreas Rasche

Ranked 95th in The Financial Times‘ 2024 Global MBA ranking (with a three-year average rank of No. 31), Copenhagen Business School is ranked 83rd for carbon footprint, 54th for value for money, and 57th for ESG and net zero teaching. In the QS Global MBA Rankings, CBS is ranked 12th in Europe; according to Bloomberg Businessweek, it is the No. 16 MBA program on the Continent.

CBS is among the 1% of business schools worldwide to hold the triple crown of international accreditations: AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB. Like many European programs, it is highly international, with around 90% of current students from outside Denmark. Nineteen nationalities are represented among the 47 students in the program this year. What is remarkable, says Andreas Rasche, is that between 70% and 80% will choose to stay in the country after graduation, to find work and live.

“A lot of students come to us because of sustainability,” says Rasche, who teaches the MBA course on the subject. “What students see here is the context in which we are embedded, because the city Copenhagen and also Denmark as a country are, of course, rather sustainable in relative terms. I think a lot of the students recognize this authenticity and they want to learn from the companies here in Denmark. And we have good connections to the sustainability leaders in the space, and we use this also, of course, throughout the program to connect students towards these companies. And we see actually quite a bit of the students going into sustainability-related careers, which is something that wasn’t there five, six years ago.

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“They come to Denmark actually to also live here, in most cases. They really want to start a new life, a new career. So they come to Denmark to start a new life, they often bring their families — and this is also something that we see as a big advantage, that they choose Copenhagen as a livable place, as a place where they can have a family and live with their families. That is the other side of this sustainability debate — that students really want to live it. They don’t just see it as an item, as something that is on the curriculum.”

Source: CBS

Graduates of the Copenhagen MBA program possess what the school terms the “Nordic Nine,” nine capabilities that enable them to become leaders not just in business but in society as a whole. Among them: recognizing humanity’s challenges and possessing “the entrepreneurial knowledge to help resolve them”; being “critical when thinking and constructive when collaborating”; and growing by relearning “and by teaching others to do the same.”

Students in the CBS MBA are studying in a Scandinavian model that reflects the high level of happiness and balanced work-life approach of the city of Copenhagen and country of Denmark. Andreas Rasche, a native of Germany, talks about how that has impacted even his seven-year-old son, who has been raised in Denmark. “When he went to kindergarten, they told him, ‘It is good to have your own opinions, keep your own opinions.’ So he pushes back a lot at home. He said, ‘But look, Dad, this is my opinion and I’m entitled to my own opinion.’

“So this empowerment of individuals in the educational approach, this is quite deeply rooted in the Scandinavian educational institutions. Not just university, but actually throughout as they go through kindergarten, elementary school and then high school later. And then, of course, it’s a lot about collaboration. We do not try to create an atmosphere where students compete against each other. We tell them, ‘Look, at the end of the day, it’s a lot about learning, that you learn something,’ and so we do not rank students in any way. ‘You are a team and you need to behave as a team throughout the year, and you will only win if you behave as a team.’”

Learn more about the Copenhagen Business School MBA by visiting its brochure and website.

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