Corporate collaboration

Capstone in Creative Sustainability

In Capstone in Creative Sustainability course students work in multidisciplinary teams towards finding creative solutions to real-life social and environmental challenges brought by partner companies.
School of Business Creative Sustainability

The student teams consist of students who are in the final year of their Master’s Degree studies in the Creative Sustainability programme at Aalto University. Their backgrounds range from business to design and chemical engineering and materials science, with an emphasis on sustainability and multidisciplinarity.

Students apply to the course projects by expressing their preferences in a motivation letter, which ensures a good fit and motivation of the student teams for the projects.

What can the company expect from taking part in this project?

The clients can be large or small business enterprises, NGOs, or public organizations. In recent years, these projects have been carried out for large companies from various sectors, for example Nokia, Outokumpu, Fazer, Familon, Fiskars, MetsäBoard, Elisa, for start-ups such as Big Plans Bakery, Entocube, Qheat, for consultants such as Gaia Consulting and Ekokumppanit, for public organisations such as City of Espoo, Government of Mozambique, Aalto University, and Tanzania Meteorological Agency, and for NGOs such as Kompensäätiö, Smart & Clean Foundation, and LiiKe Sports & Development.

The projects have ranged from developing ideas for potential novel products, concepts for energy-efficient residential areas, and solutions for visualizing environmental data, to designing business models for startups in the field of sustainability, and concrete prototypes of products aiming at increasing sustainability.

The participating company will receive

  • a rigorous analysis of the situation
  • new fresh ideas
  • description of possible business solutions

What is required from the company?

The client representative is expected to be present in one of the early sessions to present the project as well as in the final reporting session to comment on the outcome of the project from the client’s point of view.

In addition, the client organization is expected to provide suitable information and contacts for the students to support their work.

What do the students receive?

The course summarizes the skills-related learning outcomes of the Creative Sustainability Master’s Programme, which is a multidisciplinary learning platform in the fields of business, design, and chemical engineering and materials science, operated jointly by the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, the School of Business, and the School of Chemical Engineering.

During the course students analyze the client’s sustainability challenge, develop solutions for it, and report the work orally and in written form according to the needs of the client. Each student team is supervised by one of the teachers of the course and a nominated contact person from the client organization.

Course details

  • Contact: Leena Lankoski, [email protected]
  • Project duration: 4 months (January - April)
  • Number of students per project: 3-6
  • Project fee for a company: negotiable
  • Application period for companies: 01.09.–30.09.2023
  • Program website: acs.aalto.fi
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