Designated as the “Year of the Sea,” 2025 marks a turning point in global environmental awareness. Convinced that business schools have a key role to play in the transition, NEOMA Business School created the Planetary Short Film Festival – Business & Ocean, in partnership with UNESCO and France Télévisions. Over a 48-hour period, 1,400 second-year Master in Management students explored how businesses interact with the ocean, translating their analyses into images through more than 250 short films.

The ocean as a learning ground

In 2025, the “Year of the Sea” underscores the ocean’s preservation as a global challenge—one that sits at the crossroads of environmental, social, and economic issues.
Against this backdrop, NEOMA Business School opened the academic year for its 1,400 second-year Master in Management students with an immersive seminar: the Planetary Short Film Festival – Business & Ocean, co-organized with UNESCO and France Télévisions. The students benefited from the insights of high-profile speakers committed to protecting marine environments, including Ainhoa Leiceaga, Olympic surf champion, and Jade Verda, professional dancer and founder of the Minuit 12 Collective, dedicated to creative and activist projects around climate and biodiversity issues. Supervised by 30 NEOMA faculty members, the students spent 48 hours analyzing threats to marine ecosystems, assessing how economic players respond, and crafting collective advocacy pieces in favor of shared governance of the oceans.

Aligned with NEOMA’s strategic plan “Engage for the Future”, this seminar reflects the School’s commitment to embedding environmental challenges at the heart of its teaching approach—mobilizing collective intelligence, creativity, and critical thinking while placing students in action-oriented learning situations. “We wanted to contribute to the ‘Year of the Sea’ by having our students work on an environmental issue that remains under-discussed, through an innovative educational format based on short film creation. The idea was to draw on scientific insights, to encourage students to imagine business models that better respect the commons, and to place them in a creative, solution-driven posture. The ocean calls for global solutions but also for a transformation of perspectives and practices,” explains Delphine Manceau, Dean of NEOMA Business School.

Bringing corporate commitments to life on screen

Co-organized by Élise Bruchet, Director of Social and Environmental Transition at NEOMA, and Laure Lelasseux, Assistant Professor in Sustainability, the festival invited students to examine how companies such as PHYTOMER, OCEANO VOX, AXA CLIMATE, SAILCOOP, MER CONCEPT, and NEOLINE integrate biodiversity and ocean preservation into their business models. Their investigations and storytelling culminated in over 250 short films, each 90 seconds long—combining rigor, creativity, and collective engagement. «The festival showed just how capable students are of applying systemic thinking and creative skills when confronted with a tangible challenge like ocean protection, «notes Élise Bruchet. “Faced with complex topics, we believe it’s crucial to design pedagogical experiences that help students grasp the interdependencies between the business world and all living systems—while rediscovering joy and collaboration as tools for building a more peaceful future,”adds Laure Lelasseux.

A shared reflection on the role of businesses in the ecological transition

The final events, held on September 22 in Reims and September 29 in Rouen, marked the culmination of the project. These ceremonies celebrated the most inspiring student projects and opened broader discussions on the role of companies in the ecological transition and the contribution future managers can make to these global challenges.