The World Environment Center (WEC) and the Center for Corporate Sustainability Management at IMD announced the formation of a joint partnership to assist global companies in implementing sustainable development in their business strategies and operations. The partnership will enable both of these leading non-profit sustainability institutions to achieve greater scale and impact in their respective initiatives and involve a growing number of thought leaders to advise and assist global companies to improve their business performance.

The specific objectives of the partnership are to:

• Conduct joint Forums and Roundtables on selected leadership topics that advance the ability of global companies to develop solutions that create business value and address the needs of civil society.


• Organize training activities to advance learning and competency development in such areas as advancing innovation through sustainability management.


• Expand the capacity of both organizations to deliver additional value for their respective memberships through supply chain management, achieving greater scale in sustainability management and identifying emerging issues.


• Preparing sustainability advisory services to global companies in key areas of business management.

"Establishing this new partnership with IMD's Center for Corporate Sustainability Management represents an exciting new opportunity to integrate WEC's practical, problem solving mission with the IMD Center's high level analytical creativity," stated WEC's President and CEO Dr. Terry F. Yosie. "Our collaboration is designed to accelerate the process of converting ideas into action."

"IMD's Center for Corporate Sustainability Management has three strategic objectives: helping companies to embed sustainability strategies in their organizations, contributing to mainstreaming sustainability in executive education and reaching out to other dynamic and progressive think tanks and organizations that share the same objectives," says Dr. Aileen Ionescu-Somers, Director of CSM at IMD. "This collaboration with WEC is completely in line with this strategic direction."

About WEC: Founded in 1974, WEC is an independent, global non-profit organization whose mission is to assist companies implement sustainable development in their
business strategies and operations in partnership with national governments, non-governmental organizations, universities and other stakeholders. WEC conducts no advocacy activities and takes no positions on public policy issues. WEC is headquartered in Washington, D.C. with regional offices in Beijing, China, Augsburg, Germany and San Salvador, El Salvador. For more information please go to www.wec.org.

About IMD: Based in Switzerland, IMD is consistently top-ranked among business schools worldwide. With more than 60 years' experience, IMD takes a real world, real learning approach to executive education. IMD offers pioneering and collaborative solutions to address clients' challenges. Our perspective is international - we understand the complexity of the global environment. Real-impact executive learning and leadership development at IMD enables participants to learn more, deliver more and be more. (www.imd.ch).

IMD's Center for Corporate Sustainability Management (CSM) is a membership driven research and learning initiative. It has been carrying out multi-industry and multi-stakeholder studies on the building and roll out of sustainability strategies in organizations for the last decade. Learn more at www.imd.ch/csm.

World Environment Center

World Environment Center

The World Environment Center advances sustainable development through corporate business practices. Headquartered in Washington, D.C. with offices in Europe and Latin America, WEC creates business solutions through Executive Roundtables on key sustainability challenges, builds capacity of small enterprises in emerging markets, and honors industry excellence through its annual Gold Medal Award. WEC is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization. For more information, please visit www.wec.org.

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