(4-6 hours per week)
Develop essential skills and hone your business acumen with IMD's online programs:
- Get immediately applicable insights and tools for real impact at work
- Learn directly from IMD's world-class faculty in a flexible online format
- Maximize your learning via weekly interactions with your dedicated executive coach
- Receive IMD certification upon program completion
What you'll learn
Winning Sustainability Strategies will help you integrate sustainability into your business and maintain your competitive edge.
Discover key global sustainability trends, best practices for embedding the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) into your business strategy, and insights on how to manage the opportunities and threats of a circular economy.
Acquire practical tools and frameworks to confidently lead your sustainability transformation, and report on targets and progress.
Develop a high-level action plan for implementing a sustainability strategy in your organization with the support of your dedicated executive coach.
Who will benefit
Lead the sustainability agenda in your business

How the program works
Winning Sustainability Strategies is a 5-week online program that involves 4-6 hours of study per week.
Each week covers a specific unit and features a mixture of asynchronous videos, reading materials individual assignments, group discussions and interaction with your dedicated executive coach.
You can complete the coursework in your own time while meeting weekly deadlines. You will receive IMD certification upon completion of the program.
Weekly one-on-one interaction with your coach ensures that you consolidate your learning, receive feedback on individual assignments and take the time to reflect on your learning journey.
Your coach interacts with you via video, in writing, and on the phone. Over the five weeks of study, you have calls at intervals that enable you to consolidate your learning.
- Find out about the UN SDGs and key global sustainability trends
- Learn about the vectoring model
- Complete the sustainability scoresheet for your organization
- Understand the importance of focus on specific sustainability issues
- Learn the concept of materiality and apply it to your organization
- Reformulate your company purpose
- Learn how to design a robust sustainability reporting framework for your company
- Understand how to embed the SDGs into your business strategy
- Find out how to successfully position sustainability within a modern business context
- Understand how to address opportunities and threats arising from the circular economy
- Apply tools such as the waste hierarchy and stakeholder partnerships
- Examine circular strategies for solution development
- Create a high-level action plan to implement sustainability strategy in our organization
- Examine the potential of innovation platforms and collaborative networks
- Anticipate resistance and obtain superior engagement from teams
Learn from IMD expert faculty
The Winning Sustainability Strategies program is designed and led by IMD expert faculty Benoit Leleux and Jan van der Kaaij, and enables you to access their insights in a flexible online format.

Dr Leleux is the Stephan Schmidheiny Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at IMD, where he serves as Program Director of Winning Sustainability Strategies and Foundations for Business Leadership. He was…

Jan is Co-founder of Finch & Beak, a European consultancy specialized in accelerating sustainability. He teaches at IMD and Moscow School of Management, and is co-author of "Winning Sustainability Strategies: finding…
Find purpose, drive innovation and execute change with the Winning Sustainability Strategies program. Download the program information to learn more about:
- Program learning journey
- IMD online experience
- Program faculty
IMD is ranked #1 in the world for Open Programs for the ninth consecutive year in the 2020 Financial Times Executive Education Rankings.


