Bahçeşehir University Meets Leading Figures of the Business World

The Bahçeşehir University Branding Center (BBI) and CIFAL İstanbul, the Türkiye center of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, met with leading figures of the business world in Denizli, the locomotive of Türkiye's textile industry, as part of the "C-Level Meetings Series".

In the program, Tamer Atabarut shared his presentation on "The European Green Deal, Circular Economy and the Textile Sector", Kemal Say on "Sustainability 1.0: Risks and Opportunities", Besim Özek on "Industrial Symbiosis for Competitive Advantage", Engin Güvenç on "Change Management and Sustainability Integration", and Prof. Dr. Elif Yolbulan Okan on "Fundamental Changes in Business Life, Sustainability" with the participants. Bahçeşehir University President Prof. Dr. Şirin Karadeniz, who touched on the importance of marketing and branding from the perspective of sustainable development, stated that they had adapted courses on sustainability into Turkish.

Prof. Dr. Şirin Karadeniz said: "We have nearly 300 schools across Türkiye. We have preschool institutions starting from age 4. In addition, we have 5 different universities in the UK, the USA and Europe. In total, we have 250 thousand students. When we went to Harvard University 5 years ago regarding sustainability, we started a collaboration with a professor there. When we started this, we adapted the courses into Turkish together with our professor in order to teach global citizenship and sustainability from the earliest age. We opened them not only to our own institution but to all institutions in Türkiye. Since then, together with the center we established at the United Nations and our system work, we have in fact been covering these topics in our courses from age 4. Our young people carry out projects on this subject, and at the university level we teach courses together with the industry and scientists."

"We want to both benefit the industry and support their efforts"

Stating that they strive for Turkish brands to become global, President Karadeniz said: "First of all, as a university, we come together with different sectors. We hold these sector meetings especially on sustainability and branding. There is a very important reason for this. Türkiye has very important global brands that reach out to the world. We want these brands of ours to grow even more. We want our Turkish brands to become global brands. However, for them to do this, the Green Deal has emerged in Europe. The concept of sustainability is now very important, and some sanctions will come into force in 2025. Therefore, in order for Turkish brands both to ensure their continuity and to exist as global brands, they need to understand sustainability and integrate it into their own production processes. As a university, we are in Denizli to meet with the industry together with both our branding center and our experts at the United Nations sustainability and development center. What matters here is that we want both to benefit the industry regarding the latest developments, advances in the scientific world and how they can achieve certain points with the concept of sustainability, and to support their efforts."