Pilar Acosta, committed to sustainability

What motivated you to study science? 

I come from Colombia and went to a French high-school. I've always been interested in production processes, so I studied engineering in this field at university in Cali. During this course, I came across organizational sciences: how companies organize themselves to produce a product or offer a service. Then, for three years, I worked in France as a consultant on these issues. I finally embarked on a thesis in management science. I then returned to Colombia for work, but also for family reasons. Then, in 2021, I was recruited by the Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship Department at École Polytechnique.

Your doctorate focused in particular on the question of corporate responsibility in the context of sustainable development.

Indeed. I studied a subsidiary of a multinational in the food sector, with a head office in Europe and a subsidiary in Colombia. The suppliers of this subsidiary had to integrate new tools linked to sustainable development, but they didn't have the same notions of responsibility or sustainable development. I followed one supplier for three years, with interviews, observations of meetings and participant observations, i.e. meetings where you contribute to the project. I had to understand the complexity of these organizations, where there are different players, power struggles, coalitions and so on. The aim was to understand how the idea of responsibility is transformed within these suppliers.

You then joined the Center for Management Studies (I³-CRG*) at École polytechnique. How did you get involved in developing teaching projects on sustainability and sustainable development?

Along with 7 other professors from different departments, under the coordination of Céline Guivarch, I took part in the creation of the “Engineering Sustainability” course in the Ingénieur Polytechnicien Program. I introduced the question of management. On the one hand, companies contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, but they can also play a positive role in mitigating these emissions. The tension between growth and environment places managers in a paradoxical situation for which they need to be prepared. Alongside teaching, this is one of my main areas of research.

Do you find that inequalities between men and women are still an obstacle to women in research? Do you also study their impact in your research on sustainable development?

In engineering studies, whether in France or Colombia, there are fewer women than men. In management sciences, this is less the case, but depending on the sub-field, there is a gendered distribution: the more “quantitative” the field is perceived to be, the more masculine it is. We're still in a patriarchal world. There are certainly grants and programs to encourage women to do research, but then we come up against the problem of balancing work and family. I'm thinking, for example, of the number of publications, which the academic system favors. When you're pregnant, you have time to devote to your pregnancy during which you don't publish. This is not always recognized in terms of promotion or career prospects.

As far as my research is concerned, I'm interested in diversity issues, but more in North-South inequalities than gender inequalities. Indeed, the research and theories in my field have been largely initiated by Western researchers. However, there are other theories, other worldviews that are less emphasized. Yet they bring complementary perspectives, especially on environmental issues, the relationship with nature and technology, and the notion of environmental justice.

*I³-CRG: a joint research unit CNRS, Mines Paris - PSL,  Télécom Paris, École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91120 Palaiseau, France