Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership

13/08/2026

How do the CISL postgraduate programmes develop our students beyond technical capabilities?

In this blog, Maria Jurčević reflects on how group projects simulate the challenges facing business: "Like many organisations seeking to build resilience, the group has had to manage ambiguity, balance competing priorities, and make progress without formal authority."

Through the group project, students build trust and a shared sense of purpose. This results from the ability to listen carefully and challenge assumptions and ideas constructively, allowing them to recognise how to foster the conditions needed to enable collaborative and collective action.

Read Marija's blog here:

Resources Resources overview CISL News Publications Blogs Events Podcasts Press office Making markets fit for the future Beyond technical expertise: Developing human capabilities for a resilient future 12 August 2026 - Marija Jurcevic reflects on how developing human capabilities such as collaborati...

12/08/2026

Today, we're sharing Henri Eliot's impact story. Through our alumni, we can show how CISL postgraduate courses enable you to drive the transition to a more sustainable future through your work.

When he joined the MSt in Sustainability Leadership, he found the diversity of thought most striking.

"I expected a room full of sustainability consultants; instead, I found myself debating systemic risk with hedge fund managers, engineers, and policymakers from every corner of the globe. This "collision of perspectives" surpassed my expectations—it forced me to defend my governance theories against real-world pressures I hadn't yet considered."

In terms of how the programme influenced his work, he shares how he took concepts from assignments and CISL frameworks into his consultancy roles. This has enabled him to span the boundaries of fiduciary duties. "I now approach every board table with the conviction that long-term commercial success is inextricably linked to social and environmental health."

Evaluating the skills gained in the programme, he mentions: "In short, the programme didn't just give me a certificate; it gave me the intellectual infrastructure to lead the transition to a more responsible form of capitalism."

Postgraduate impact stories: Henri Eliot Spanning the boundaries of fiduciary duties, pioneering leadership in responsible capitalism.

11/08/2026

What does it take to move from ‘nice-to-have’ initiatives to everyday business decisions?

For Paul Edmond, Chief Finance Officer at Heart Academies Trust, the answer began with CISL’s Business Sustainability Management 8-week online course. What started as a personal interest quickly became his default way of working: procurement, supplier due diligence and capital investments are now evaluated through a long-term value lens – asking whether something is needed, where it comes from, its total cost of ownership, and how it performs over time.

Paul highlights how the course helped him build stronger partnerships, ask better questions of suppliers, and bring evidence-based rigour to decisions that previously relied on assumptions. As he says: “It doesn’t have to be theoretical and most of the time what I learnt from it I am applying in one way or another within my organisation to make it better.”

Thanks, Paul, for showing how applied learning can reshape leadership practice and deliver tangible impact across an organisation.

👉 Ready to bring that same depth and practicality to your team? Explore our 8-week online courses:
OR
👉 Read Paul's full testimonial and explore our 8-week online courses:

CISL's students share their experience of the Business Sustainability Management course which address the growing need and prevalence of sustainability practices in business.

04/08/2026

🗣️ “Being aware of all the breadth of the different approaches that could be taken is important to narrow down which one is the best suit.”

Leo Kirby, Managing Director at Principled Investments, shares his experience of CISL’s Sustainable Finance 8-week online short course – and how it helped him bring clarity and confidence to real-world investment strategy and decision-making.

Thank you Leo, for highlighting how the course’s case study approach and systems thinking lens supported you in redesigning strategies and engaging a broad range of stakeholders with greater credibility.

👉 If you’re looking to deepen your understanding of sustainable finance and apply it directly to your work, explore our suite of 8-week online courses.
OR
👉 Read Leo's full story and explore our suite of 8-week online courses:

CISL's students share their experience of the Online Sustainable Finance course which explores the current financial system and learn how to create and protect long-term value in a turbulent world where we are facing growing tensions between short and long-term priorities.

28/04/2026

📢 The UNICEF Venture Fund is exploring four key climate challenges, and we’re looking for innovators to help address them.

1. Strategic planning: Strengthening hazard mapping, vulnerability scoring and pollution hotspot identification.
2. Early warning- Early action: Delivering hyper‑local alerts for air quality, heat, humidity, floods, storms and disease outbreaks.
3. Healthcare readiness: Forecasting climate‑linked health risks such as malaria/dengue onset, heatwave surges and air‑quality‑related respiratory spikes.
4. Point‑of‑care support: Helping communities and authorities access and use trusted climate‑health data to support preparedness and service continuity.

If you’re building solutions in any of these areas, you may be a fit for UNICEF’s Climate Ventures call for applications.

➡️ Learn more on the website and apply here: https://ow.ly/ER2l50YQMSx.
Applications close May 17, 2026.

24/04/2026

Day 7 was the last day of the ‘Sustainability Leadership for the Built Environment’ Master’s workshop our students. Six interdisciplinary student groups presented their practical projects to the review panel, including representation from Historic England. Students explored what they would do with six different buildings from the ‘Heritage at Risk Register’ to bring them back into efficient, resilient, and future-fit use in a viable way- and how those options could be funded.

Thank you to Historic England for supporting the project and for joining us on a Saturday to review and provide feedback to our students

Thanks to Tom Billington and Dr Kayla Friedman for designing this practical project which was gave our students the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills and show what could be possible!

Finally thank you to our students for always bring their own insights, expertise and willingness to be challenged!

A reminder that applications close for the SLBE programmes (Postgraduate Certificate and Master’s) on 29th April 2026!

👉 Discover how the programme connects heritage, sustainability and leadership in practice.
https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/education/graduate-study/idbe/sustainability-leadership-built-environment

Formerly IDBE. Two-year part-time Master's course for built environment professionals, from the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainabilty Leadership.

23/04/2026

Day 6 is the last full content day of the ‘Sustainability Leadership for the Built Environment’ Master’s workshop students. The focus for the final day was learning from leading real-world examples of heritage and retrofit projects.

We heard from a selection of speakers working on buildings from 34 years old to 300 years old and the specific challenges they are dealing with.

Friday was also the final day for the students to finish off their practical project presentations which they present on the final day of the workshop.

Thanks to Dr Kayla Friedman, Joey Aoun, James Manning, Basil Demeroutis and Tom Billington for providing in depth knowledge.

👉 Discover how the programme connects heritage, sustainability and leadership in practice.
https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/education/graduate-study/idbe/sustainability-leadership-built-environment

Formerly IDBE. Two-year part-time Master's course for built environment professionals, from the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainabilty Leadership.

22/04/2026

On Day 5 of our part-time ‘Sustainability Leadership for the Built Environment’ Master’s workshop our students explored leadership, professionalism, and interdisciplinary practice in heritage retrofit, as always, the speakers covered a range of topics from initial investing to post occupancy and in situ evaluations.

The students enjoyed an in depth discussion of the retrofit work done here in Cambridge at New Court College.

The cohorts also had the opportunity to continue to develop their leadership skills by focusing on understanding power and influence as well as interrogating project briefs and managing conflicts.

Finally, a treat of an evening lecture considering radical approaches to efficiency in both retrofit and new-build.

Thanks to Dr Louise Drake, Oliver Smith, Peter Fisher, Harriet Browning, Alex Marlow, Oliver Broadbent and Sylvie Sasaki for sharing their in-depth knowledge.

👉 Discover how the programme connects heritage, sustainability and leadership in practice.
https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/education/graduate-study/idbe/sustainability-leadership-built-environment

21/04/2026

We’re pleased to share feedback from a former delegate of our Business and Sustainability Programme (BSP):

“A superior programme to any other sustainability programme I have encountered. High calibre experts, focused on its objectives, with an aggressive balance of theoretical, factual and practical input.”

As we have been highlighting in recent work on what is working now, leaders are under growing pressure to make decisions that shape long-term resilience while continuing to deliver today. The need for confident, evidence-based leadership has never been more urgent.

📍 Applications for the Cambridge seminar in June (14-17) are open.

This seminar is designed for leaders working across business, finance and policy who need to act decisively in a rapidly changing context.

👉 Apply and secure your place now: https://ow.ly/oUa550YMGPv

15/04/2026

On the third day of our workshop, our part-time ‘Sustainability Leadership for the Built Environment’ Master’s students had in-depth sessions exploring some of the challenges, opportunities, and leading work being done in the heritage and retrofit space, particularly in planning, finance, and building physics. We also had a very grounding session that gave an uncensored view of examples of what can happen to jobs on-site!

Thanks to Dr Tim Forman, David Willock, Cordula Zelider, Tom Billington and Morwenna Slade for providing their in-depth knowledge and answering the hard questions.

👉 Discover how the programme connects heritage, retrofit, sustainability and leadership in practice: https://ow.ly/QYHU50YJTpe