McKinsey Launches “Sustainability Academy” to Help Clients Upskill on Climate and Sustainability
Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company announced the launch of “Sustainability Academy,” a new program aimed helping clients upskill their boards, executives and employees for the net zero transition and to address sustainability-related risks and opportunities.
According to McKinsey, the new program is being introduced to help clients address one of the common challenges to meeting their ESG goals, noting research indicating that 100% of companies in some sectors have defined sustainability strategies, but only 40% believe that they have the knowledge and capabilities to achieve their targets.
The new initiative follows the launch last year by the firm of McKinsey Sustainability, a platform aimed at helping clients across industries transform to get to net zero by 2050 and to cut carbon emissions by half by 2030, as well as the McKinsey Academy for Sustainability to train boards and high-level executives on climate change.
The Sustainability Academy program was designed from consultants from McKinsey Sustainability, and by learning experts from the firm’s client-focused capability building center, McKinsey Academy. The program follows an “acquire, apply, and sustain” approach, which includes formal learning experiences, application of capabilities in a real-world context, and helping organizations to unlock lasting behavioral change.
Sustainability Academy launches with 2 programs, including “Executive Masterclass,” targeted at senior leaders, with versions at the executive and board level, and the enterprise-wide “Sustainability transformation essentials,” with core sustainability concepts including the climate transition, solving the net-zero equation, and capturing new business opportunities.
McKinsey Partner Pietro Sorrentino said:
“Private organizations have a central role to play to decarbonize our economy, but to do so they must build skills and capabilities that today they do not have. McKinsey’s Sustainability Academy was created exactly to do that: help companies accelerate change by supporting them in building new knowledge for their employees.”