
The Best Business School Partnership award recognises institutions that share AMBA & BGA’s passion for building networks and have adopted a proactive, innovative approach to strategic collaboration. We are thrilled to have been recognised in this arena.
The University of Edinburgh Business School and NatWest Group designed and delivered a flexible, scalable and impactful learning and development partnership to empower more than 63,000 of the banking group’s colleagues (99.9% of NatWest Group’s headcount) with the necessary technical knowledge, skills and awareness to deliver on its climate ambition.
As the UK’s leading bank for business customers and one of the largest for personal customers, NatWest Group has a significant responsibility and ability to encourage, enable and lead people across the UK to a Net Zero carbon economy. The Group has maintained a strong relationship with the University of Edinburgh Business School for several years, by supporting the student experience through guest lectures and student projects, and through collaborating on joint research.
The partners consulted with stakeholders throughout NatWest Group to design and deliver a three-level climate learning and development initiative to meet three key objectives: Building Agency, Driving Awareness and Inspiring Action.
Beginning in September 2020, the partnership’s first programme, Climate Change Transformation, equipped 1,847 colleagues in priority roles with in-depth learning on topics from sustainable leadership and effective decision-making to fostering green innovation.
Having enhanced capabilities among senior leaders, the partners launched the Climate Change Fundamentals programme to NatWest Group’s more than 64,000 colleagues in January 2023. By the end of that year, 63,844 colleagues had completed the programme.
Significantly, in its 2023 all-staff survey of circa 50,000 colleagues, 91% of colleagues said NatWest Group was an environmentally responsible company, up from 87% in September 2020 when the partnership began.
We are proud at how this innovative partnership responded agilely to the organisation's and colleagues’ developing needs, blending and layering different learning strands to create a positive change culture throughout the banking group.
This wonderful achievement is testament to the outstanding work of our Executive Education team in close collaboration with NatWest. This partnership delivers the School’s mission to create meaningful change for people, organisations and the environment.Professor Gavin Jack, Dean of the University of Edinburgh Business School
Sarah Ivory, former Director of the Centre for Business, Climate Change, and Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh Business School, said: ‘Partnerships like this take patience, motivation, and commitment from all parties. Working with NatWest's climate teams and education teams made for a smooth planning process and ensured the programmes we designed were targeted and effective. But what we loved most was working directly with NatWest group employees. It was their willingness to be open-minded, to ask intelligent questions, and to work to apply the lessons they were learning to their own roles, that made this partnership so effective.'
James Close, Head of Climate Change at NatWest Group, said: ‘At NatWest Group, we recognise the importance of investing in our people to build the future skills and behaviours we need to realise our climate ambition. We are delighted that our multi-year partnership with University of Edinburgh has been recognised with this award.’
Combatting the impacts of climate change will require a collaborative and wide-reaching effort. The AMBA and BGA award is a demonstration of this, recognising the superb collaboration between NatWest and University of Edinburgh teams, and the wide-reaching impact achieved by training tens of thousands of colleagues.James Close, Head of Climate Change at NatWest Group
This is now the second awards that this project has received, having also earned Gold at the Learning Technology Awards for the Best Digital Learning Transformation Programme last year.