Overview

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This Strategy and Sustainability course equips business leaders with the skills to integrate environmental responsibility into core business operations. Based on Rosenberg's book, the course provides a framework for making strategic choices that balance short-term financial goals with long-term sustainability objectives. You will learn to analyze complex environmental issues, develop data-driven sustainability strategies, and effectively communicate these strategies to stakeholders. Through practical examples and case studies, you will gain the ability to create a business case for sustainability, manage sustainability projects, and meet the growing demands of environmentally conscious consumers and investors. Understand how sustainability drives business value. No prior experience required.

Syllabus

Course Overview: Introduction to Business and Environmental Sustainability

Welcome! Before starting today's video lectures, please have a look at the course syllabus below. In this first session, we'll explore six fundamental differences between how, in my view, CEOs and board members think about the impact of business on the environment and how environmental activists, lobbyists, journalists, and legislators think about the same ideas. The session also deals with the evolution of environmental concern over the last 60 years and how business has responded. Objectives: To understand the different mindset that business has with respect to other parts of civil society and develop an appreciation for the relatively rapid evolution that has occurred in the relationship between business and the environment in the last 60 years.

Strategic Business Issues: Analysis and Frameworks

This session calls out the strategic issues in which environmental sustainability plays a key role, such as securing a license to operate, dealing with competition, and shaping consumer and societal perception. Learning Objectives: To dig into the different ways in which the issue of environmental sustainability becomes a subject for business strategy.

Developing Strategic Options for Sustainable Growth

This session first introduces the idea of environmental sensibility which will be different for companies in different business sectors and in different parts of the world. It then develops six strategic approaches that businesses might follow according to the degree to which they choose to comply with or go beyond legislation. Learning Objectives: To understand the idea of environmental sensibility and to explore different levels of response. In addition, learners will be able to determine the right approach for specific firms in a specific sector and place.

Environmental Interest Groups: Strategies and Impact on Business

Part of the issue in choosing a strategy to deal with environmental issues is to fully understand the broad spectrum of environmental interest groups. This session explores how the movement took off, distinguishing between four types of groups and examining how business might consider interacting with them (and vice versa). Learning Objectives: To explore the nature of four different types of environmental interest groups such that their motivations and behaviors can be better understood.

Global Business: Environmental Differences Across Industries and Regions

This session explores differences across business sectors including automotive, oil & gas, fast-moving consumer goods, mining, and IT/consumer electronics. We will also contrast the situation in the United States with Europe, China, India, and Africa. Learning Objectives: To underline the importance of adapting a specific firm’s strategy to its sector, its geographic scope and even the nature of its ownership and governance structure prior to developing a specific strategic response.

Developing a Sustainability Strategy for Business: Frameworks and Implementation

This session presents an integrated framework for working through the issues introduced in the other sessions in order to develop a strategy. This involves understanding the firm’s past and present, looking ahead with a 10–20-year time horizon; quantifying, to the degree possible, the cost and benefits of different options; and making sure that the entire organization – from the board of directors down to line management – understands the direction chosen. Learning Objectives: To go through the critical steps required to build a robust strategy for dealing with environmental sustainability in a specific company or institution.