Business and Sustainability

Catalog description

An inter-disciplinary and global perspective on the business case for social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and transparency in corporate governance. This course provides an overview of principles and practices from the natural and social sciences, arts, humanities, and professional disciplines that contribute to understanding and responding to increasing concerns over the consequences of world population growth (now in excess of eight billion people), climate change, energy, natural resource use, environmental degradation, and calls for a more fair distribution of limited and diminishing resources. Issues of corporate sustainability and social responsibility are examined particularly as they pertain to the development and application of business strategy and practices that build social equity, and restore environmental quality while maintaining long-term profitability and enhanced competitive advantage. While the concept of sustainability has existed for some time, it is relatively recently that managers have started to explore its applications to organizations and managerial behavior beyond the basic ideas of corporate social responsibility and recycling. This course moves beyond these basic ideas to place sustainability in its historical and conceptual context by examining the history and definitions of sustainability in organizational management, the role of current drivers and stakeholders, and the advantages and disadvantages of various frameworks and methods for integrating and managing sustainability within organizations, and in their environments. Selected examples of contemporary research and organizational cases will be analyzed to gain a sense of effective and ineffective approaches to sustainability, as well as addressing issues of standards, measurement, and transparent reporting.