A powerful innovation born in the International MBA elective, “Business Opportunities – How Did We Get Here and Where Should We Go?”, is becoming a real sustainability initiative at Corvinus University. What began as a class project has now received official approval and funding from the organisation our course collaborated with demonstrating how student ideas can grow into meaningful, university-backed change. 

Together with Ágnes Szalkai-Lőrincz from Friends of the Earth Hungary and the Science Shop, our International MBA team (Daniela Toth, Tala Salman, Tuqa Al-Balushi, Shaima Al-Gabri és Daniel Soós) is launching the Living Lab Energy Community (LLEC): a pioneering effort to bring clean energy, collaboration, and community engagement directly into the heart of Corvinus. 

Building C Becomes a Clean Energy Living Lab. 

The initiative’s first milestone is transforming Building C into a living laboratory for renewable energy. The project will begin with the installation of solar panels, enabling the campus to generate shared clean power and providing students and researchers with hands-on opportunities to explore energy solutions in real time. 

This marks the start of one of Hungary’s first university-based energy communities– a long-term effort connecting students, faculty, alumni, NGOs, and local businesses around sustainability, research, and community collaboration. 

A Community Built Together from Day One. 

A unique and defining aspect of the LLEC is that it is being built from the very beginning by the people who join it. 

This is not a pre-defined program; it is a growing community, and everyone who joins now will help: 

We are inviting anyone – from students to alumni, from faculty to business professionals, from NGOs to interested members of the public – who is passionate about sustainability and wants to be part of something bigger than themselves. 

Your ideas, your voice, and your commitment can help build a model that could influence energy communities across Hungary.