The Client: Bain & Company
Bain & Company, a global leader in business consulting, has been committed to sustainability in its operations for a long time; when the firm announced plans to “equip each consultant to advise on ESG issues within their areas of expertise and ensure that an understanding of ESG risks and opportunities is at the heart of every client brief,” MIT Sloan Executive Education saw an opportunity to make a meaningful positive impact by helping Bain in their ambitious upskilling goal.
Scaling up for global impact
In a company press release, François Faelli, global managing partner for ESG at Bain & Company, said: “Reaching net zero on a global scale requires a tremendous investment in ESG skills. The next generation of business leaders must intuitively understand how to balance financial and non-financial objectives. I am proud to say that we will very shortly have succeeded in delivering this training for thousands of our advisors who will help steer our clients towards a more sustainable future.”
An integral part of delivering on this vision, the MIT Bain Sustainability in Action program launched in early 2023 as an online learning experience designed to present a broad range of climate and sustainability topics via six asynchronous modules in 60 live online sessions to overlapping cohorts amounting to nearly 1,200 participants across Bain’s offices. The participants varied from recent grads to senior partners, but everyone was committed to learning. The unique program format blended asynchronous content and interactive live sessions, many of which included simulations where Bain consultants had an opportunity to apply MIT frameworks to address sustainability challenges from the perspective of different stakeholders. This dynamic approach allowed busy consultants to engage effectively, dedicating three hours a month to exploring sustainability topics.
“Consultants are not an easy group to teach, as we constantly question the data and assertions being put forward,” said Cate Hight, Partner at Bain and Company. “The unique thing about this program is that we had an opportunity to co-design the approach and content with the MIT professors, to ensure Bainies were able to access best-in-class content they could apply to their day-to-day client work. The blended approach of asynchronous videos plus classroom time also enabled us to connect across offices on topics that are top of mind both for Bainies and for the businesses we support.”
To ensure the smooth delivery of learning to such a large and varied audience and on an accelerated timeline, we assembled a team of colleagues with expertise spanning program design, process design and project management, on-demand video production and digital learning. We worked very closely with the team at Bain on every aspect of each module.
“In designing this program for Bain, we were charged with creating a customized program that was simultaneously broad in the spectrum of MIT content and faculty we engaged and immediately applicable to the work of a wide range of consultants,” said Kristin Zecca, Director, Executive Programs and Lecturer at MIT Sloan Executive Education. “The learning experience prioritized efficient delivery in a short amount of time. To achieve that, we augmented classroom sessions with focused live interactive experiences and we customized the content for the participants by getting to understand their organization and those of their clients to make sure that everything they learned would be effective in maximizing the impact.”
Getting the best of MIT
For this learning experience to be effective, participants had to cover a broad range of critical sustainability topics including climate change, business sustainability, technological impact, agriculture and bioengineering, industry and manufacturing, sustainability metrics and reporting, community engagement and stakeholder management, communication and leadership for sustainability, and more.
“Climate change is without a doubt the world’s greatest business challenge, and MIT is uniquely positioned to lead in this arena. While best known as a technical and scientific institute, MIT also has significant business and allied social sciences expertise,” said Donald Lessard, the program Faculty Director, the Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management, and Professor of Systems Engineering, Emeritus.
To deliver this breadth of knowledge, we have convened a diverse faculty team from across MIT, representing not only the expertise available within the labs and centers of the MIT Sloan School of Management but also leading researchers from the School of Engineering and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT.
“We were able to draw from across MIT to deepen participants' understanding of the sustainability challenge—climate change in particular—and how to turn that understanding into action at the firm level with deliberate choices of focus, decarbonization pathways that often include new business models, the unique challenges of doing this in agriculture and land use, as well as how to engage diverse stakeholders actively,” explained Lessard.
Amplifying learning for wider change
Even though the initial scope of delivery was quite large, the value of the program extends further—the asynchronous assets we created for the program at MIT are being used throughout the company to equip more Bain consultants with the skills they need to advance sustainability among their clients and be successful in helping the companies that they work with create more sustainable strategies for the world.
The program’s instructional design also incorporated into each module several of Bain’s subject matter experts who put MIT content into the Bain context by sharing successes in clients’ sustainability efforts from across the global company.
“This program embodies the MIT motto of Mens et Manus–Mind and Hand. It’s not just about what to do but how to create a healthier, safer, more prosperous world for all. Now, nearly 13,000 Bain consultants worldwide are sharing that knowledge with their clients across nearly every industry and country. The potential for impact is truly impressive,” said John Sterman, Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management, Professor of System Dynamics and Engineering Systems, Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group, and one of key faculty members in the program.
In essence, the MIT Bain Sustainability in Action Program met and exceeded expectations, creating a platform for positive change across a wide range of industries where Bain clients operate. The program's success is not just measured in completion certificates but in the real-world impact it imparts on consultants and the organizations they serve.