Course Description
How do large and small organizations deal with sustainability challenges? What are the implications for strategies and business models?
This course dives into the concepts of environmental and social organizational sustainability to understand what kinds of strategies organizations apply to deal with sustainability challenges. It starts with mapping the different drivers of organizational sustainability and what this implies for the re/pro-active actions of organizations. It then considers how different sizes of organizations, from startups to multinational corporations address these challenges: How do they differ in their approaches, what similarities can be found? What are the challenges and/or opportunities related to each type of organizational size? The course then moves to discuss the circular business models and the related topic of supply chain sustainability. Finally, it moves towards understanding how to assess/measure sustainability issues and discusses how potential tensions between social, environmental, and financial goals might arise and how they can be resolved.
Particular key questions that are addressed during this course:
- What is organizational (environmental and social) sustainability?
- What are the drivers of organizational sustainability?
- What types of sustainability strategies exist; how do they differ?
- How do larger organizations, SMEs and entrepreneurs pursue sustainability strategies?
- What are the challenges and opportunities for sustainability strategies?
The main learning outcomes of the course are:
- Gain an overview and knowledge of the concepts of organizational sustainability, social and environmental.
- Understand what drives environmental and social sustainability pursuit of organizations.
- Develop a general understanding of what types of strategies are promising in different sizes of organizations, as well as the differences between larger and smaller organizations.
- Critically reflect on the challenges and tensions organizations face when implementing sustainability strategies, in particular related to economic constraints, but also between environmental and social goals.
- Apply the acquired knowledge to analyze case-studies and a company of choice in the group work, drafting strategies these organizations might employ to address social and/or environmental challenges.
- Sharpening of presentation and feedback skills when presenting the chosen organization in the group work in front of peers.
