ENBUS 601Business and the Case for Sustainability0.50 units
This on-site intensive course introduces students to basic business concepts and integrates them with concerns for sustainability. The underlying emphasis is on the value and rationale, opportunities and risks for businesses to undertake and integrate environmental and social sustainability initiatives. Business topics to be covered include an introduction to concepts and terminology from finance,accounting, strategy, marketing, organization behaviour and operations. Guests from academia, industry, governments, and non-profit organizations present topics and case studies. Students also learn about the MEB program, meet faculty members, meet each other, and are introduced to distance education tools.
ENBUS 602Introduction to Sustainability for Business0.50 units
This course reviews the history of global environmentalism; societal expectations and business responses; and the emergence of corporate social and environmental responsibility. It systematically presents environmental (climate change, air pollution, water quality and quantity, energy and resource consumption, etc.), and social (human rights, health, poverty, ethics, fair trade, etc.) issues, their science, status and priority; technological, regulatory and policy responses; and implications for business. This course introduces concepts for business sustainability, including systems thinking, complexity and resilience, corporate responsibility, materials and energy flows and transformations, economic and market mechanisms, and relates these to business operations, marketing and strategic management.
ENBUS 620Business Operations and Sustainability0.50 units
This course examines environmental and sustainability management tools for business operations; it addresses process and product considerations. these include environmental management system tools; cleaner production and pollution prevention tools (environmental risk management, environmental impact assessment, emissions quantification and verification, eco-efficiency, etc.); product stewardship and eco-design tools (design for environment, life cycle assessment/costing, greening supply chair, etc.); sustainability accounting tools (key performance indicators, ecological foortpint, social balance,m full cost accounting, et); and human resource tools (managing teams, motivating people for sustainability, diversity policies, etc.). The sustainability tools are explained in relation health/safety programs, human resources management, and operations and quality management. The course draws on practices and illustrative examples of performance of organizations in different sectors, around different environmental issues (energy, waste, water, air emissions, etc.).
This course exposes students to best practises in greenhouse gas management from the perspective on a business. This course goes into depth on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, quantification and management. It includes organizational GHG inventories, with reference to international and regional standards, protocols, regulations and schemes; GHG information management systems; expectations and approaches to disclosure of carbon emissions and management activities; and strategic business positioning for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
This course builds students' competencies in environmental life cycle assessment (ICA) and life cycle management of products. Course content covers product sustainability management, life cycle thinking, product stewardship approaches. It includes life-cycle assessment of raw materials and energy rescues, manufacturing and processing, use, end-of-life and recycling, supply-chain and logistics. The content follows international standards and related guidance for study scoping, functional unit, inventory, impact assessment and interpretation. Management applications include ecodesign, product benchmarking, ecolabelling and green marketing. The course also presents strengths, limitations and weaknesses of sustainability performance assessment of products. Students apply quantitative approaches including use of ICA software and databases.
ENBUS 630Enterprise Marketing and Social Accountability0.50 units
Changing boundaries, and shifting social expectations create risks and opportunities for an enterprise. This course discusses the need to remain accountable to society and manage the firm's reputation in the age of digital information and raised sustainability disclosure expectations. It also examines the implications for marketing and reporting. The course introduces core tools for corporate sustainability marketing and reporting, including stakeholder engagement approaches, social accountability and carbon disclosure guidelines, sustainability reporting frameworks, sustainability standards, codes, certifications and labels, and green marketing.
This course focuses on the various approaches for business and organizations to engage both internal and external stakeholders. Content covers the identification and characterization of primary and secondary stakeholders; drivers and challenges in environmental, social and economic dimensions of engagement; approaches, including communication, consultation, dialogue and partnership and strategic considerations, business value, risk management, limitations and pitfalls. In additional, the course considers a firm's responsibility and spheres of influence. The Primary focus of this course will be on a for-profit company, though there are some applications to other types of organizations.
This course builds students' competencies in sustainability indicators, reporting and corporate accountability approaches for multinational corporations and other types of organizations. The course examines global reporting standards for environmental, social and sustainability reporting that are relevant to all sectors of industry and society. It covers the identification and roles of stakeholders certification and auditing expectations and procedures. Content addresses materiality in sustainability reporting; regulatory context; legal implications; interrelations with financial accounting practices and standards.
ENBUS 640Strategies for Sustainable Enterprises0.50 units
This course looks at organizational strategy through the "lens" of sustainability. It explores how corporations (and other types of organizations) are realigning and in some cases reinventing their corporate strategies to move toward more sustainable business models. This includes initiatives undertaken within the firms, as well as initiatives pursued outside the firm (such as through partnerships). Several frameworks are offered for assessing the degree to which principles of sustainability are embraced within an organization's strategies. In addition, tools for formulation and implementing a sustainability strategic plan are presented. Case studies draw from different sectors and also different organizational types.
ENBUS 642Partnerships and Policy for Sustainability0.50 units
This course considers collaborative approaches between business and non-profits, government and other groups. These may formalize into industry associations, joint ventures, public-private partnerships, networks, business to non-profit collaborations, etc. Or they may involve informal interactions between organizations. The course discusses partnership formation, structure and processes. The course illuminates how multi-stakeholder decisions are made, and how policies and laws are created at the regional, national and internationals levels. In addition if considers collaborative strategic management, and structuring partnerships for implementation.
Financial and accounting "tools" have potential to create effective and far-reaching market-based solutions to address a range of environmental problems, including climate change, deforestation, water issues and biodiversity loss, while at the same time identifying and securing new business opportunities for companies and their customers. An increasing number of financial and accounting products and services have emerged to direct resources and lending power to mitigate ecological degradation and/or encourage sustainable practices and decision-making. the course considers environmental finance products, tools and services; carbon finance an economics, and other approaches to environmental assets; international capital projects, structured financing, risk and sustainability in financial modeling; full-cost accounting; relation of sustainability performance to capital market valuation and financial performance; socially responsible investing; sector governance, disclosures, regulations, principles and codes.
ENBUS 690Enterprise Sustainability Project0.50 units
The capstone class synthesizes the learning in the program into an action research project. Students show original application of the knowledge they have learned and reflect on the utility of the frameworks and tools using a case study approach. After learning relevant research methods, student teams develop a proposal on a research project which meets the needs of their assigned live case study (i.e. the company or other organization which has committed to be the case in the research project). This proposal includes a review of the relevant literature, the methodology,, the timeline, and a breakdown of task assignments. Next students obtain ethics approval for their research project. Then student teams apply the business sustainability toolbox, and their management skills to the real-world problem of their live case. Each field study includes conducting a situation analysis, developing a sustainability strategic plan for the organization including a complete and coherent business case. A Faculty member assists each team. Students deliver field study project results as a report to both the organization and the course instructor. Individual students also complete a reflection paper including a discussion of the case in relation to the application of the tools, frameworks and literature.