Meet the 2024 CSR Leaders, online and face-to-face meetings with sustainability leaders

The Amapola project for university students is back for the twelfth edition of the CSR and Social Innovation Show, this year in collaboration with the CSRnatives network.

How do you make a career in sustainability? What does working in this field involve? The “Meet the CSR Leaders” project that brings together the new generations with sustainability professionals is back again this year for the CSR and Social Innovation Show (Bocconi University, 9-10-11 October 2024)  The initiative stems from Amapola’s partnership with the Show. This year is the third edition of the project, whose format has been extended with online and face-to-face meetings and thanks to Amapola’s collaboration with the CSRnatives network, the first and only network in Italy that brings together young professionals and students who share a passion for CSR.

Go to our page on the project.

A chance to meet

“Meet the CSR Leaders” is an initiative for university undergraduates and new graduates who are interested in finding out about the prospects for a career in sustainability, giving them the opportunity to meet up with people who work in the field on a daily basis. The meetings consist of a one-to-one orientation session, lasting around 30 minutes, with one of the experts at the Show. Students will have a chance to discuss competences, hard and soft skills, formative and work experiences with the “leaders” and obtain suggestions on directing their professional career into sustainability.

To enable the participation of students from all over Italy, the 2024 project also plans to organise online meetings during the last day of the Show, exclusively for people studying at universities outside Milan.

The 2024 Meet the CSR Leaders program

The schedule for the orientation sessions is as follows:

• Wednesday 9/10: face-to-face from 2 pm to 5 pm
• Thursday 10/10: face-to-face from 10 am to 1 pm and from 2 pm to 5 pm
• Friday 11/10: online from 10 am to 12.30 pm and from 2 pm to 5 pm

Sessions can be booked through this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/biglietti-meet-the-csr-leaders-2023-637894699217 no later than Monday 7 October 2024.

“Meet the CSR Leaders is real opportunity for discussion between the new generations and the professionals who are leading the sustainable transition,” says Rossella Sobrero, a member of the CSR Show promotions team. “Over and beyond training and skills updating, it is important to create spaces for debate and exchanges of experiences: this is the goal of the Show, which, in its recent editions, has increasingly encouraged the participation of young people, intergenerational discussion and reflections on the future. This year our cultural program includes meetings and roundtables on training, the jobs market, changing skills and the role of the new generations in change, in identifying contradictions and in developing solutions for the sustainability dimension.”

The project

This year marks the third edition of the project. In 2023, it consisted of 10 hours of one-to-one orientation sessions over 3 days, involving 50 young people who met 23 Sustainability Managers. Interviews with some of the protagonists can be seen here on YouTube here. “Helping young people who are interested in sustainability to make a career in the field is one of our objectives as a Benefit Company,” observes Amapola partner Elena Mancino.

“From Greta Thunberg to the eco-activist movements, young people are calling for engagement, participation, tools to change the situation: facilitating them is a moral duty for us. So we are delighted to be working as from this year with the CSRnatives network, who will help us broaden the impact of the project through their widespread network and their commitment, which we share, to spreading the sustainability culture.”

“One of the main goals of our network is to create interest in sustainability issues by encouraging the participation of the younger generations,” explains CSRnatives coordinator  Vincenzo Baccari. “The guiding theme of our work this year is to valorise young people and sustainability professions: Meet the CSR Leaders is an event that we couldn’t miss.”

THE CSR AND SOCIAL INNOVATION SHOW

The aim of the Show – promoted by the Bocconi University, Sustainability Makers, Global Compact Network Italia, ASviS, Fondazione Sodalitas, Unioncamere, Koinètica – is to keep attention on sustainability high all year round, to collect and share positive experiences and to create opportunities for debate among the different social groups. Here are some of the key figures for the 11th edition: 284 organisations, 115 events (available on the Show’s YouTube channel), 549 speakers, 4,600 people present in three days, 9,000 remote connections, more than 2,800 media reports, 10 stages of CSR Giro d’Italia, 1 publication edited by Egea. The Show has an important online presence: the website www.csreinnovazionesociale.it; a weekly newsletter sent to more than 16,000 recipients; Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn profiles as well as the YouTube channel.

In 2015 the Show obtained ISO 20121 certification: Bureau Veritas Italia has certified the last six editions as a “Sustainable Event” in the planning and management phase.

THE 2024 EDITION

The title of the 12th edition of the CSR Show is Challenging contradictions. Sustainability is complexity: today, we need not only to learn how to live change but also to look at problems in a different way. Every view, statement, decision contains the seed of a contradiction: thank to the simultaneous presence of opposites, however, interesting opportunities arise for discussion that stimulate organisations and individuals to see reality from a different perspective. The road towards sustainable development is still uphill: but innovative solutions often emerge at the most critical times. Everyone’s commitment is necessary, with a plurality of action and continuous engagement with stakeholders.