New ideas do not change the world on their own. They need people to carry them further, institutions to research them, and places where they can be shared.
Stephan Schmidheiny therefore did not only develop his own ideas; over many years, he also supported universities, research centres and educational institutions. His interest centred on questions at the intersection of business, society and the environment. Rather than funding individual projects, he invested in building lasting institutions capable of developing new answers to long-term social, economic and ecological challenges.
A Laboratory for Latin America's Future
In the mid-1990s, Stephan Schmidheiny turned his attention increasingly to Latin America. The region faced the challenge of reconciling economic development, social progress and the protection of natural resources. For Stephan Schmidheiny, one thing was clear: the answers to these questions could not be dictated from Europe or North America. They had to emerge locally – from people who knew the political, economic and social realities of Latin America from their own experience.
Against this background, the Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development (LACCSD) was founded in 1996 at INCAE Business School in Costa Rica. Even the inaugural event made clear the ambition of the new centre. Guests included Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School, whose work on competitiveness and cluster development significantly shaped economic policy debate in the region, and development economist Jeffrey Sachs, one of the defining voices in the international development debate of his time. The year before, Porter had met with seven Central American presidents at INCAE. He and Sachs shaped the international discussion on development and economic change during those years. The centre thus did not emerge in a vacuum, but at a moment when the region was debating its own competitiveness. The LACCSD was meant to connect these debates with Latin America's concrete challenges.
Stephan Schmidheiny's support for the project went beyond financing. He saw the LACCSD as a place where new ideas for the region's future could emerge: practice-oriented, interdisciplinary, and shaped by dialogue between business, politics and civil society. In recognition of his long-standing commitment to promoting responsible entrepreneurship and sustainable development in Latin America, the school named him Director Emeritus.
In 1999, the Edificio Stephan Schmidheiny was opened on the INCAE campus. To this day, the building houses the centre, the library, the rector's office and teaching rooms, and stands as a symbol of the ambition to bring together research, teaching and social development.
The centre still exists today and ranks among Latin America's leading institutions in the field of sustainable development. It addresses competitiveness and good governance, social progress, climate change, innovation and technology, working with partners such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and international development organisations.
A New Institute for Europe's Leaders
In 1986, Stephan Schmidheiny was appointed Chairman of the International Management Institute (IMI) in Geneva. Founded by Alcan in 1946, IMI specialised in executive education and thus operated in a field comparable to that of the Institut pour l'Étude des Méthodes de Direction de l'Entreprise (IMEDE), based in neighbouring Lausanne and established by Nestlé in 1957. Soon after taking office, Stephan Schmidheiny recognised that combining the strengths of both institutes would bring great benefits, and he therefore drove forward their merger.
In 1989, the merger of the two institutes into the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) was announced. Based in Lausanne, Switzerland, IMD today ranks among the world's leading institutions in management education (MBA, Executive MBA, Executive Education).
Already at IMI, Stephan Schmidheiny, together with Canadian entrepreneur Frank Tilley, launched the Family Firm Institute (FFI) to conduct research and education in the field of family businesses. Following the merger of IMI and IMEDE, this initiative evolved into the IMD Global Family Business Center, which continues to this day to offer the distinctive «Leading the Family Business» programme.
In 1990, Stephan Schmidheiny endowed IMD with the Stephan Schmidheiny Chair of Family Enterprises. This chair, known today as the Stephan Schmidheiny Chair of Entrepreneurship and Finance, is dedicated to research and education in sustainable entrepreneurship. In 1992, Stephan Schmidheiny stepped down from IMD's Board of Trustees.
Four Universities, One Shared Problem
By the 1990s, sustainable development had long become a political and economic issue. In academia, however, it was still often treated separately by discipline: engineers focused on technologies, economists on markets, and environmental scientists on ecological limits.
Stephan Schmidheiny was convinced that many of the major challenges of the future could only be understood if research crossed these disciplinary boundaries. This conviction gave rise, in 1997, to the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS), a partnership between ETH Zurich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Tokyo; Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology joined later.
The alliance brought together researchers from different disciplines who were working on the same global environmental and development questions, often from very different perspectives. Stephan Schmidheiny supported the initiative both financially and substantively, chairing its international advisory board until 2001.
In 2011, the alliance was dissolved, as its original approach had largely taken hold at the participating universities. Sustainability had become a field of research that considered the natural sciences, technology, economics and society together.