Sustainability At ESMT Berlin: Bees & Business Lessons

ESMT Berlin is a place to find both future business leaders and bees. A strange combination, perhaps, but one that encapsulates sustainability at ESMT. Here, faculty prepare students to become changemakers on a global scale. But here too, the school is making change happen at the local level, with initiatives like a bee-friendly campus garden.  

This commitment to positive change is planted at the heart of ESMT. Located in the middle of Berlin, Germany, the ESMT campus was once the state council building of the former German Democratic Republic, then the temporary Federal Chancellery of a united Germany – today, it is home to a leading, international business school with a global mindset. And this transformative ethos extends across programs, faculty, students, and even the campus itself.  

Sustainability At ESMT: On Campus Projects 

In 2023, ESMT installed a photovoltaic (PV) system on the roof of its historical main building. The system, which is the largest system of its kind in central Berlin, covers up to 25 percent of the school’s electricity needs. It helps ESMT reduce an estimated 150 tons of CO2 emissions annually – a significant step towards the school’s sustainability goals of achieving carbon neutrality in scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030.   

The heritage-listed campus garden, too, is a place where transformative sustainability is at the forefront. The garden itself is certified by the Berlin State Animal Welfare Officer and provides shelter for urban wildlife, including hedgehogs, foxes, squirrels, dormice, and native songbirds. Its trees are on a tree register and receive annual health checks. There is an on-campus greenhouse where staff, faculty, and students get involved with annual planting. And a wildflower garden is sown in the spring to provide a habitat for bees, butterflies, and other insects. 

A Top-Down Mindset That Extends Off Campus 

This idea of merging sustainability and corporate responsibility is also central to the ESMT Institute for Sustainable Transformation (IST), founded in 2024 to support businesses in accelerating their own sustainable transformations. The IST’s many initiatives include leading campus decarbonization efforts, helping implement sustainability literacy amongst corporate partners, hosting the on-campus Sustainable Business Roundtable, and supporting the sustainability research of ESMT faculty. 

Additionally, the IST is instrumental in shaping the future of corporate sustainability – including supporting ESMT MBA and master’s students who wish to dive more deeply into the topic during their studies.  

MBA and Master’s Degrees Where Sustainability Is Part Of The Curriculum 

Sustainability is a vital part of the curriculum at ESMT, with master’s and MBA students learning key elements of business sustainability during both core and elective classes.  

In several of the degree programs, students have the chance to take this still further. Master in Innovation and Entrepreneurship students, for instance, get the opportunity to attend the Sustainability Bootcamp. Run in conjunction with Vali Berlin – ESMT’s entrepreneurship hub – this is a week-long intensive program. Students are presented with sustainability challenges experienced by real NGOS and corporate partners, then work with mentors to pitch innovative solutions before an investor jury.   

For Master in Global Management students, an integral part of the curriculum is the Social Impact Project. During this five-week fieldwork program, students team up to serve as a management consultant for an organization making a specific social impact, often in an economically developing country. For many students, this is a chance to really see beyond sustainability as a buzzword, understand how it affects people’s lives and futures, and begin to make a concrete difference. 

The ESMT Sustainability In Practice Project 

For Full-time MBA students, one of the opportunities to really drill down into sustainability at ESMT comes during the summer elective, with the Sustainability in Practice (SIP) consulting project. The SIP sees students work in teams to take on a practice consulting project for a real-life company, while addressing specific sustainable consulting objectives.   

A recent project saw a team of Full-time MBA Class of 2026 students partner with Nespresso to help design a biodiversity index for the coffee industry. Participants Gloria Mopotu and Olga Melekhina explained that, while none of their team had prior sustainability consulting experience, their diversity of backgrounds – and support from Nespresso and ESMT – helped them create a successful presentation. 

Gloria said that the experience helped open her eyes to new ways of thinking about success. “As an MBA student, one of my biggest takeaways was learning to think beyond the usual business lens and to appreciate that some of the most important decisions cannot be measured by short-term returns alone. It also reminded me how valuable diverse teams are, because solving real sustainability challenges requires different perspectives and a lot of openness.”   

Building A Sustainable Future 

The benefits of a project like this extend long after the consulting stage is finished. For Olga “the SIP project provided valuable, first-hand experience in sustainability consulting and showed us how business education can be applied to environmental challenges. On a personal level, I gained a good understanding of the biodiversity landscape and its current challenges – a topic I am interested in exploring further.” 

The project also inspired Gloria to think about the future. “I absolutely believe sustainability is an important part of business,” she said. “Today, it is not something companies can afford to treat as secondary. It plays a big role in how businesses build resilience, respond to stakeholder expectations, and prepare for the future. To me, sustainability is really about long-term thinking, and I believe the strongest businesses will be the ones that know how to combine profitability with responsibility.” 

Olga added “the SIP project exemplifies what makes ESMT’s Full-time MBA experience unique: the opportunity to work on meaningful projects with real impact while building expertise in areas you’re passionate about.” 

Students As Sustainability Leaders 

As well as the formal curriculum, ESMT students also have multiple opportunities to explore the topic of sustainability as an extracurricular activity. 

Many actively engage with student clubs to create their own student-driven sustainability initiatives. A recent example comes from the ESMT Net Impact Club, who teamed up with the Tech & Innovation Club to launch the Climate Hackathon. Working under the topic Code Green: Hacking the Future of Sustainable Impact, ESMT students and external guests used data and tech to come up with practical, green suggestions for solving Berlin’s housing renovation crisis.  

As ESMT Full-time MBA student, Student Services Community Coordinator, and hackathon attendee Punit Thakkar put it “I felt an amazing energy of collaboration and cross-pollination in this event as it brought together people from such diverse backgrounds and interests.” 

“The solutions presented by the teams were practical and implementable, and the most impressive outcome of the event was that everyone who participated ended up submitting a solution, making this the only hackathon I’ve been to with a 100% completion rate.” 

The Future Of Sustainability At ESMT  

From the thought-leadership demonstrated by faculty, to on- and off-campus initiatives, to the opportunities given to students, ESMT is a place where sustainability and business not only coexist – they can make each other stronger.   

For prospective MBA and master’s students interested in the more sustainable side of the business world, this means ESMT is a strong option. After all – as the wildflower bee garden demonstrates – sustainability at ESMT is quite literally growing every day. 

---

ABOUT ESMT

ESMT Berlin  is a leading global business school with its campus in the heart of Berlin. Founded by 25 global companies, ESMT offers master, MBA, and PhD programs, as well as executive education on its campus in Berlin, in locations around the world, online, and in online blended format. Focusing on leadership, innovation, and analytics, its diverse faculty publishes outstanding research in top academic journals. 

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.