student & alumni focus WRITERs: Laurent Barbezieux, Lukas Loers and Edouard Mulot CEMS students
Edouard Mulot, Lukas Loers and Laurent Barbezieux
CEMS Team plays Société Générale’s Citizen ACT Game, Season 2010/11 “Play, Train and Act for Good” is the slogan of Citizen ACT, the first training game for university students to develop the new sustainable banking practices of tomorrow. The 2010/2011 season was played by three CEMS students, from WU Vienna and HEC Paris. Forty-five teams from 18 different countries secured a place in the second round, and projects ranged from social to environmental projects such as spreading information about globally rising sea levels, but also commercial practices like the CEMS’ student’s project. Our German/French Team, with the lengthy name “Customer Centred SRI Funds - Reshaping
SRI Approach” focused on developing new commercial practices for the bank’s SRI funds. In short, SRI stands for Socially Responsible Investment Funds, which are Financial Instruments that allow investors to invest into ethical corporations.
Responsible fund investment pushed via social media The reason behind focusing on SRI Funds was the belief that the financial professional can also do “good”, and create long-term value, by directing funds into socially responsible businesses, thus avoiding bad corporate citizens. Besides, investors developed an ever growing appetite for SRI funds, and Assets Under Management reached c. $25bn globally in 2010. On the other hand, SRI funds are still rather unknown in today’s market, so the team decided to change this.
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For four weeks, our team planned to redesign the bank’s approach towards its customers, by proposing new communication channels via social media, and by involving the public through their Citizen Act blog. Feedback from other students but also professionals helped a great deal to define the final work. Eventually, our team was eliminated before the reaching the final. Nevertheless, the Citizen ACT game allowed us to learn much about sustainable banking and other innovative projects for a better future. We strongly encourage future CEMS generations to participate in the first CSR Training game of Société Générale, to develop new banking practises of tomorrow.