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Celebrating the European Sustainable Development Week 2019

12-06-2019

As sustainable development is in the core of MSM’s DNA, MSM organized some special activities again in the light of the European Sustainable Development Week 2019.

Debate night
On Monday 3 June MSM organized its first ever Debate Night. Two teams of MBA and Master in Management students debated against and for the topic: the global climate change is a result of human activities. The debating teams were very well prepared and brought their interesting arguments and viewpoints with conviction. The judging panel consisting of Dr. Stephanie Jones, Dr. Jakomijn van Wijk and Mr. Dave Cass judged both teams on the clarity and use of arguments, on the use of cross-examination and rebuttal, and on presentation style. After the debate, the judging panel needed some deliberation time to define the winning team, and they provided some advice to the teams on how to improve their debating skills. It was a close call but the team debating against the topic was announced as the winner of the debate. Congratulations Amirbahador, Aneesha and Ellen!

Movie night
MSM’s Movie Night on Wednesday 5 June featured the movie The True Cost, a groundbreaking documentary film that provides an eye-opening journey into the lives of the many people and places behind our cloths. Before the Movie Night, the students were asked to fill in a survey about their buying behavior for cloths. After watching the movie, the students filled in a survey again to see if the movie would have had an impact on their future buying behavior. The results were very promising: 52% of the students indicated that they would be willing to pay more for a pair of jeans if they would know that it is produced in a sustainable way, and 38% would consider to pay more. In the survey before the movie, the aspect of ‘sustainable product’ scored less than 5% in the buying decision for cloths. After the movie, 37% of the students rated ‘sustainable product’ as the most important aspect for their buying decision. Also 84% would certainly or most likely share the story of The True Cost to increase awareness.

Student for Sustainability Award
We closed off the European Sustainable Development Week with the awarding of the Student for Sustainability Award for both an MBA student and a Master in Management student.
For the Master in Management program Alka Khenchi received the award. Alka tries to achieve sustainability in every project or activity she undertakes. Her final thesis is related to gender equality and looks at the board composition and gender diversity at the workplace. In addition, Alka has been involved as a volunteer in a broad range of SDG related initiatives. She has been selected as a volunteer to organize the UN SDGs Global Festival of Action 2019 in Germany, as Peace Ambassador (SDG 16) by the Institute for Economics and Peace, as a member of Rotary Peace Club, as a Global Volunteer to organize an awareness project related to SDG 17 (Partnership for goals) in the University of Paderborn, Germany. Alka is also part of TeamUp - a collaboration of War Child Holland, Save the Children and UNICEF Netherlands, which organizes activities for social integration and well-being of refugee children (SDG 4).
For the MBA program, Claudia Martinez was the proud winner of the Student for Sustainability Award. Claudia brought the issue of sustainable development many times into the class discussions. Technology has reshaped the workplace and caused some jobs to disappear, but in Claudia’s opinion instead of firing people, a program for training people could save many jobs. She already implemented her idea within the company she used to work for. By sharing her experience and raising this topic in class sessions, she made her classmates more aware of this topic.
Congratulations to Alka and Claudia. Keep up the good work!

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