The annual Sustainability Career Boot Camp, hosted by the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, provides Stern undergraduate students with an intensive training program to prepare them for a variety of sustainability-oriented careers. In January 2025, we partnered with PwC for an engaging boot camp with a hands-on introduction to skills & internship opportunities in sustainability with a deep dive workshop on sustainability as a strategic imperative highlighting the key ESG concepts, frameworks and standards driving their work with clients.

To learn more about the boot camp, read Eugene Cho's reflection below.

Eugene Cho
BA '28
Concentration: Sustainable Development and Governance

Attending the annual Sustainability Career Bootcamp reshaped and strengthened my understanding of sustainable business, not just as a buzzword but as a fundamental aspect of the way business works. At the bootcamp, surrounded by professionals that have dedicated their lives to working at the intersection of business, sustainability, and social impact, I saw how these concepts translated into strategy, action, and impact.

As our PwC professionals began with introductions, it was incredibly insightful and reassuring to hear not just their current role but the differing paths that brought them there. Some had the more traditional backgrounds in finance or accounting, but many took untraditional paths, with experience in different fields like diplomacy and environmental studies. Their stories stood out to me as an essential truth about sustainability. The fact is, sustainability is not a niche or a specialization, but a mindset relevant to everyone no matter the field they start with.

And from learning how ESG principles are actually broken down and applied to risk management and governance with insight into the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) that PwC is currently working on in Europe, a lot of the initial abstraction of sustainability in business faded away. Particularly during our group case exercise, we examined a multinational sportswear company and assessed its readiness to comply with CSRD disclosures. What seemed to be simple quickly revealed its complexity. Which aspects of a company’s operations, supply chain emissions, labor conditions, waste reduction, is material in reporting? How do we determine what’s required for compliance versus for strategic long-term sustainability?

Most importantly, the bootcamp wasn’t just about learning from professionals, but connecting with them as individuals. From bonding over soccer during lunch to hearing their personal thoughts during the panel, conversations often went beyond sustainability. And it was clear the PwC consultants were fully engaged, thoughtful, and incredibly insightful and willing to not just share their career paths and experiences, but be present and guide students.

Walking away from the event, I have much more clarity on the impact I want to make through business. I truly believe what we now call sustainable business will soon just be called business, not because it loses steam, but because it’ll be so heavily incorporated into the core of business.