ENV 807b/MGT 688/Law () / 2023-2024

Corporate Sustainability Strategy and Management

Credits: 3 Spring 2024: M,W, 2:30-3:50, Burke

This survey course focuses on the policy and business logic for making environmental issues and sustainability a core focus of corporate strategy and management. Students will be asked to analyze when and how sustainability leadership can translate into competitive advantage by helping to cut costs, reduce risk, drive growth, and promote brand identity and intangible value. The course seeks to provide students with an introduction to the range of sustainability issues and challenges that companies face in today’s fast-changing marketplace. It will introduce key corporate sustainability terms, concepts, tools, strategies, and frameworks based on the overarching theory that the traditional profit-maximizing mission of business (often called shareholder primacy) is giving way to a new vision of stakeholder responsibility that still seeks to provide good returns to the enterprise’s owners but also acknowledges obligations to employees, suppliers, customers, communities, and society more broadly.

The course will combine lectures, case studies, and class discussions on management theory and tools, the legal and regulatory frameworks that shape the business-environment interface, and the evolving role of business in society. It will explore how to deal with a world of diverse stakeholders, increasing transparency, and rising expectations related to corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Self-scheduled examination.”