Through the Young Challengers programme, The Shift and its partners hope to encourage companies and organisations committed to sustainable development to place their trust in a generation of young professionals from the sector and to draw inspiration from them.

“We see today that, in order to initiate a dialogue and create a shared narrative and project, resilience is needed, patience is needed, but also that dialogue in which people trust one another and realise that what they share can help someone, because that too is important: we enjoy being involved in other people’s stories, but also being able to learn from them,’ says Nina Weytjens.

“Inviting a Young Challenger into a company means opening the door to advice, influence, challenges, inspiration and constructive criticism’,” sums up Vincent Truyens, founder of Corporate ReGeneration. Young people also have the ability to use tools and technologies that are still not very intuitive for some organisations, and this experience can offer new perspectives during strategic discussions.

Another way to engage with the Young Challengers is to invite them to help strengthen your sustainability strategy. To this end, companies have chosen to place their trust in young people and let them lead a session. This creates a fertile ground for constructive exchanges, rather than polarised debates. At Danone Belux, for example, topics such as biodiversity and water emerged from the discussions, and the company was able to derive added value from these meetings by subsequently adjusting the direction of its strategy. “It wasn’t just young people at the table, but they were the ones who raised these issues,” emphasises Vincent. “So there was a representative of future generations at every discussion table, and the other facilitators were young people too. The effect of this – something we’ve also experienced elsewhere on a smaller scale – was that, at that moment, it felt as though a wide range of different stakeholders were present,” he notes. “It’s as if that calmed things down and we committed ourselves to something else. We are committed to future generations.”

The need to give young people a voice is shared by others who have had similar experiences. “The Young Challengers are very important when you consider the decisions taken in boardrooms,” says Cathy Macharis, professor of sustainable development at the VUB. “Instead of simply giving the floor to those sitting around the table – often aged between 45 and 65 – we must also give all our young people the chance to speak out and ensure that they can make the voice of their generation heard (…). Furthermore, I believe we must give nature a special place at this decision-making table, so that it is systematically taken into account, alongside future generations.”

By its very nature, a board of directors focuses its discussions on financial results, and this influences the way in which directors shape and evaluate their impact. The experience of senior managers and the company’s history can thus act as a barrier to sustainability-focused issues, as some Young Challengers have observed. Salvina Ikoli recalls her previous experiences: “There were people who perhaps didn’t realise what was wrong with what they were saying, and by asking them questions, the conversation was brought back somewhat to the heart of the matter and they were able to understand that there is indeed another way of looking at things.” Questions that are sometimes regarded as naïve actually reflect a different interpretation of the data, the use of a different set of criteria to assess the impact. “We bring a different perspective that can genuinely add value for boards of directors, because there is a curiosity to go beyond the boundaries set by experience or other factors,” emphasises Maxime Goffin.

This approach also enables the Young Challengers to challenge the reasoning of certain boards of directors and highlight the contradictions therein, for example in the case of a company that is fed up with the competition. They prompted the company to ask itself: “Why do you continue to position yourselves against your competitors and fight them, when they have solutions that are just as sustainable as yours?”  And so the advice – which the company subsequently followed – was that it should not engage in price competition if its competitors’ solutions are equally sustainable, Vincent recalls with pride. “It is precisely in situations like these that innovative or new ideas emerge – perspectives that differ from what you already know,” notes Manon Bakoa of Sustenuto. “I think these are moments that offer added value and present opportunities for clients or organisations to collaborate with young people.”

Other organisations have tried out various strategies to initiate dialogue with young people. Enabel, for example, has set up a unique structure that brings together young professionals from partner organisations working in international cooperation. Their aim? “To get feedback from young people in the field to test our strategy and, above all, to reconnect with what young people are thinking,” explains Vincent, who helped set up this Youth Sounding Board. This exercise was successfully carried out four times in the space of a year. So, should you call on young talent that is already involved within your company? That seems like a good idea, but according to Corporate ReGenerate, it is not always the case: a young employee may censor themselves and find it difficult to step outside their role and daily tasks. Nevertheless, the idea should not be dismissed entirely. “I’m in favour of doing both. That’s what we did at Enabel, together with Veolia: forming pairs, with a number of internal and external participants. ”This then gives rise to a form of peer coaching: “The in-house employee helps the external employee to better understand the reality [of the company], but they complement each other in different areas, creating a sort of dual perspective.” Collaborating with a Young Challenger therefore not only adds value to the business strategy, but also contributes to the development of young talent’s skills.