Leaders for a Changing World

ABOUT

BNP Paribas is the top bank in the European Union and a major international banking establishment. It has close to 190,000 employees in 65 countries, including almost 145,000 in Europe.

THE CHALLENGE

The BNP Paribas Group’s ambition is to be a leading player in the movement towards a more sustainable economy. In facing the climate crisis, banks have a major role to play by redirecting financing from the most carbon-intensive energy producers to those creating green energy. As number one in the world for the structuring and placement of green bonds at the end of 2022, BNP Paribas has shown its strong commitment to contributing to a sustainable economy.

To support this transition and to prepare the workforce and leaders of the future for the green transition, BNP Paribas launched the ‘Leaders for a Changing World’ partnership. Their intention is to run the programme from 2022 to 2025, training 110 teachers to deliver previously difficult to find sustainability lessons to 14,000 young people.

The partnership aims to:

• Focus on closing the attainment gap by investing in green skills and sustainability education targeted as disadvantaged groups.
• Strategically align activity with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and link it to the school curriculum.
• Engage young people in key sustainability issues, preparing them for the challenges of the future and helping to close the skills gap required to reach Net Zero.
• Generate a clear impact, supporting pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds across Teach First’s large network of schools.
• Engage BNP Paribas colleagues on a national scale, providing a range of volunteering opportunities to build employee pride in the partnership.
• Embed BNP Paribas’ leadership as a company in the road to Net Zero through the delivery of educational resources.

THE SOLUTION

Gemserv first started by establishing a partnership with Teach First and confirming the main objectives of developing the lesson plans and materials with the client (BNP Paribas). To support this, they agreed on providing lessons around the following subject matters:

• Powering a Net Zero Future: how low carbon electricity generation technologies support the decarbonisation agenda.
• Sustainable Financing for a Net Zero Future: how sustainable financing can be used to support the transition to net zero.
• Sustainable City Design: how cities can be made more sustainable with a focus on addressing air quality and air pollution.
• Sustainable Lifestyles for a Net Zero Future: how young people and their families can adopt lifestyles that reduce their carbon and environmental impacts.

THE IMPACT

While the project has not yet completed, Gemserv are already seeing a strong positive impact as a result of the Leaders for a Changing World partnership:

• We have now completed two of the four sustainability lesson packs – Powering a Net Zero Future and Sustainable Financing for a Net Zero Future have been released, with Sustainable City Design due in Summer 2023, and Sustainable Lifestyles due in Autumn 2023.
• We have had thousands of downloads of lesson resources over the course of the contract.
• We have now delivered three volunteer led sessions in schools, reached over 100 students, with further sessions planned for the future.

It was critical for them to set out the objectives for the development of the lesson plans and materials. In so doing they considered the requirements of the key users of the lessons, who were:

• BNP Paribas (the organisation)
• Teach First (our partner)
• Teachers
  Pupils/learners
• BNP Paribas volunteers

Gemserv then developed a proposal for approval from the BNP Paribas team. Following that we had an iterative process of resource development and feedback from the client and volunteers, first through running through the materials in practice sessions and finally in the delivery of trial lessons before formal launch. To deliver our lessons to the optimal target audience, Teach First sourced the ideal schools for us. This empowered us to gain consensus on the approach and to understand the needs of clients and volunteers.

Following the delivery of the second volunteer-led lesson, 100% of the pupils agreed or strongly agreed to the following statements:

• I learned something new that will help me with my future
• I found it helpful to meet the volunteers
• I benefitted from today’s activities
• The volunteers I met today came from a diverse range of backgrounds

100% of the pupils also rated the session as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. The top skills pupils developed were problem solving, communication and creativity.