Key Information
About the content
Business and environmental sustainability are not natural bedfellows. Business is about making money. Sustainability is about protecting the planet. Business is measured in months and quarters. Sustainability often requires significant short term costs to secure a sometimes uncertain long-term benefit. To some activists, all executives are exploitative, selfish one percenters. To some executives, all activists are irresponsible, unyielding extremists. And yet engaging with the issue isn’t optional – all businesses must have a strategy to deal with sustainability and, like any strategy, this involves making choices. This Strategy and Sustainability course based on Rosenberg's recently published book by Palgrave (http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9781137501738) that encourages learners to filter out the noise and make those choices in a hard-nosed and clear-eyed way. Prof. Rosenberg’s nuanced and fact-based point of view recognizes the complexity of the issues at hand and the strategic choices businesses must make. He blends the work of some of the leading academic thinkers in the field with practical examples from a variety of business sectors and geographies and offers a framework with which senior management might engage with the topic, not (just) to save the planet but to fulfill their short, medium and long-term responsibilities to shareholders and other stakeholders. This course promises to be both engaging and thought-provoking, aimed at anyone who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of a subject that is no longer perceived as a choice but a necessity for future managers and business leaders alike.
Syllabus
- Week 1 - Course Overview & Week 1: Business & the Environment
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 environ... - Week 2 - Week 2 - Strategic Issues
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 wa... - Week 3 - Week 3 - Strategic Options
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... - Week 4 - Week 4 - Environmental Interest Groups
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 ho... - Week 5 - Week 5 - Differences Across Industries and Around the World
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... - Week 6 - Week 6 - How to develop a sustainability strategy
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...
Instructors
Mike Rosenberg
Assistant Professor
Strategic Management
Content Designer
Platform
Coursera is a digital company offering massive open online course founded by computer teachers Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller Stanford University, located in Mountain View, California.
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