HOW do you fancy spending four days in a kayak on a Scottish loch discussing the environment and our impact on it with an outdoor philosopher who has cycled the world?

Or would you prefer spending three days with a rock star discussing creativity.

Or perhaps a two-day seminar with one of the world’s leading international leadership coaches floats your boat.

These are just three of the options being offered by a new partnership between a leading management training company and a university making waves in the world’s sustainability movement.

Learning and Development experts, Impact International, based at Windermere, and the University of Cumbria’s Institute for Leadership and Sustainability, based at its Ambleside campus, have joined forces to offer a range of short courses to give a taste of the latest thinking in leadership and sustainability.

IFLAS manager Philippa Chapman said: “We want to provide time out for people to reflect on core issues, talk to others about what is going on in the world and/or their business, and learn from experts in diverse fields about building sustainability into our lives and our business practices.

“Sustainability is about looking beyond profit as a key driver of business, looking instead at the environment, society and the wider economy.

“We need a paradigm shift from where we are to a new state of being if we are going to survive on the planet.”

Impact has been promoting sustainable practices to business leaders for a couple of decades and IFLAS has been delivering academic courses in this field since 2010, currently offering the world’s largest online sustainability Masters in Business Administration.

IFLAS Professor of Sustainability Jem Bendell is currently on secondment to the United Nations in Geneva advising on getting the world’s stock exchanges to promote sustainability.

At IFLAS he wants to give students the opportunity to reflect on their lives and careers and become better leaders.

“The world faces massive economic, social and environmental problems. I don’t see them being sorted out by short term fixes.”

Students on the MBA course are likely to be senior managers. Around 2,000 from 100 different countries are already studying on-line but coming to Ambleside for short stays.

IFLAS, in its first three years, has become the global leader in its field; Impact has been doing world-class leadership development since 1980: these courses are designed to allow wide and affordable access to their programmes and to be the go-to resource for everyone with an interest in leadership or sustainability.

Professor Bendell is one of the course leaders. Others include: Outdoor Philosopher Dr Kate Rawles, Impact consultant and IFLAS scholar Richard Little, Jamie Catto, a singer/songwriter from the band Faithless before he headed up the double-Grammy nominated global music and film project 1 Great Leap, International Business Coach, Neela Bettridge; and World expert on alternative finance, Cornis Van der Lugt.

The courses are running on various dates between May and October, 2015. More details can be found on www.impactinternational.com/IFLAS.