30 undergraduate courses in the 2026–27 Undergraduate Calendar, and 13 graduate courses in the Fall 2026 Graduate Calendar.
Introduction of ways in which business has and is responding to environmental and business issues; business and sustainable development; issues of corporate/business greening.
This course introduces the application of basic economic concepts to sustainability from the perspective of individual consumers and firms. These concepts and perspectives help to understand the economy and to analyze economic opportunities for, and barriers to, advancing sustainability.
This course introduces the application of basic economic concepts to sustainability issues from an economy wide perspective. It explores the performance of economies and how advancing sustainability may influence economic performance and social equity.
This course will explore organizational structures within business. Discussions will focus on factors that deter organizational change along with the means of overcoming these issues. A variety of guest speakers will demonstrate how the greening of industry has affected organizational structure in different business sectors. This course includes a review of business case studies where environmental management changes have resulted.
The examination and evaluation of environmental management systems such as ISO 14001. Alternate EMS systems will be compared and reviewed to identify their respective strengths and weaknesses. Case studies will be used to illustrate the ideas presented.
This course examines the role of entrepreneurship in finding solutions to environmental challenges. Discussions will focus on understanding entrepreneurship and the forces that are shaping contemporary green entrepreneurship. Students will also be introduced to the entrepreneurship process by assessing an environmental challenge, finding a solution, and developing a green business model.
The course presents the history of industrial ecology, defines its key concepts, presents its main methods, and discusses future directions. Local, national and international case studies will be discussed.
This course explores the principles of marketing with a focus on sustainability issues. Topics that will be explored include green consumerism; greenwashing, the incorporation of environmental considerations into successful products and services; the role of social marketing, government regulations, and other incentives related to green marketing.
A review of the successes and failures of businesses which have attempted to adopt sustainability principles into their strategies and practices. Case studies will be reviewed to identify barriers to adopting environmental priorities and the processes which proved successful in overcoming these obstacles.
Students will be equipped with the knowledge and expertise required to design and implement a circular economy initiative and monitor its progress through circularity indicators. In addition, students will be guided in assessing the business value of circular economy cases. Students will also gain a deep understanding by considering the individual circular economy cases from a system perspective to get a complete picture of environmental gains and losses.
This course introduces students to the basic principles, concepts, and values of doing research in environment and business. It will examine different research strategies and designs; define research questions; address ethical issues of involving human subjects in business research; identify primary and secondary data sources; and assess the effectiveness of various ways of communicating research results. This course takes stock of the quantitative research methods covered in earlier ENVS courses and introduces the basics of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods to provide further foundation for the fourth-year research projects.
Standards and auditing approaches used for sustainability management are examined. Public standards, like those from the International Organization for Standardization, are contrasted with private standards, developed by specific industries for product transparency and accountability in supply-chains. Auditing practice, as defined by the ISO 19011 standard, is examined including principles, steps, reporting and important concepts. Examples of performance standards and management system standards are explored, covering industrial, social and environmental issues. Lectures may be supplemented by required field trip(s) and/or field work.
Shifting behaviour and social norms is a key part of advancing sustainability. This course looks at how change happens - and why, in some cases, it doesn't. Students will explore concepts in social psychology, sociology, and marketing that activate people to engage in sustainable behaviours.
In this course, the basics of sustainable finance will be explored. The course will cover topics such as green corporate finance, sustainability accounting, sustainable banking, climate finance, and social banking.
Development of alternative business models has important implications for sustainability. This course will explore the emergence of entirely new sustainable business models along with the revitalization of 'old' alternative business models from the past.
A sustainability lens is used to explore the intersection of fashion and consumption. With a focus on textiles and cosmetics, we will explore aspects of design, diversity and inclusion, ecolabelling, waste, material innovations, and the culture of consumption.
Course content varies according to instructor availability and demand for specific topics in environment and business, including field courses.
The application of the principles learned in earlier courses will focus on a particular project. Applications may include group projects of sufficient scope to demonstrate mastery of problem-solving, integration, and communication on a selected topic related to environment and business, or on selected environmental issues related to a specific business operation.
A continuation of ENBUS 402A.
A project course to integrate ideation, communication and problem-solving skills with venture proposal and prototype preparation. Students will learn about and be connected with various elements of the local entrepreneurship ecosystem. A sustainability lens will be used to assess the solution proposed. Teamwork is encouraged.
A continuation of ENBUS 403A.
This course builds students' technical competencies in life cycle assessment (LCA) and in critical analysis of products' environmental impacts through an understanding of life cycle management. Course content covers the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) life-cycle assessment framework, how to conduct technical LCA (including applying quantitative approaches using LCA software and databases, as available and appropriate), challenges of application of LCA to a range of product systems, limitations of LCA, and product life cycle management concepts for business and policy decisions. Students will use the knowledge gained to conduct their own technical LCA.
Sustainability of industrial materials is examined, including resources, production, use, and end-of-life. Different types of industrial materials and major applications (buildings, transportation, communications, etc.) are covered. Industrial ecology and management approaches help restructure production systems and support sustainable development.
The course focuses on the environmental reporting mechanisms required of businesses in North America and overseas. The course will also evaluate best practices with reporting performance in different business sectors.
This course provides students with knowledge of the different regulatory approaches to managing environment and resources with a focus on the policy dimensions of regulatory instrument choice and design. The course examines market-based, regulatory, and behaviour change policy tools in relation to how they protect the environment but also address efficiency and social justice issues.
The application of the principles learned in earlier courses will focus on a particular project. Applications may include group projects of sufficient scope to demonstrate mastery of problem-solving, integration, and communication on a selected topic related to environment and business, or on selected environmental issues related to a specific business operation.
Continuation of ENBUS 409A.
Business practices need to reflect responsibility not just to shareholders, customers and staff, but also towards the local community. This course discusses what this means for management, and the strategies and practices that are needed to express this responsibility successfully.
The course will focus on corporate responsibility, including social and environmental obligations. The course will consider methods of creating a culture of integrity; examine and evaluate methods such as due-diligence processes, risk assessment, sustainability assessment to integrate responsibility into day-to-day business positions; and evaluate social and sustainability reports; evaluate methods to determine the link between responsibility and increased profitability and benchmark responsibility in different business sectors including non-profit organizations.
This course will allow for additions to the program on a short-term basis, and for the development of future permanent courses.
From the Fall 2026 Graduate Calendar.
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.
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.
This course explores different approaches that can be used to bring social innovations to scale so that they can have a broad, durable impact on a system. The role of social entrepreneurs and institutional entrepreneurs will be introduced and explored as being key to catalyzing changes in resource flows, the understanding of problems and in shifting laws and policies that govern the problem domain. New approaches to generating financing and revenue for social good, the governance and partnership structures these imply, and how they can enable or constrain systems change. Examples will be drawn from Canadian and international contexts form the perspectives of entrepreneurs, investors/donors, policymakers and beneficiaries
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 chain, etc.); sustainability accounting tools (key performance indicators, ecological footpint, social balance, full cost accounting, etc.); and human resource tools (managing teams, motivating people for sustainability, diversity policies, etc.). The sustainability tools are explained in relation to 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 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.
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 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.
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.
This course builds competences in the development and deployment of strategies and processes (in for-and not-for-profit organizations) to engage both internal and external stakeholders in opportunities to accelerate sustainability. Content covers: the identification, characterization and valuation of primary and secondary stakeholders; drivers and challenges; engagement approaches, including traditional and social media forms of communication, consultation, conflict resolution, and cross-sector partnerships. Content also introduces: structures, including informal vs. formal interactions, face-to-face and distance meetings, industry associations, joint ventures, public-private partnerships, networks and business to not-for-profit collaborations; processes, such as partnership formation, decision-making, monitoring of progress; and strategic considerations, such as business value, risk management, control vs. influence, barriers and confluence points. Students working as a team will present their recommendations on a real time case study to stakeholders involved.
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.
This course examines the intersection of business management, climate change, and the evolving policy environment within which mitigation and adaptation occurs. A Canadian lens is applied to understanding: climate change business economics; the changing policy and regulatory landscape at the international, national and provincial levels; the ways in which a price on carbon and the need to disclose carbon and climate risk can affect business decision-making; and various opportunities for companies to reduce their carbon footprint to operate in emerging low-carbon economies, make their business more resilient to the impacts of climate change, and identify value-creation opportunities. Leadership cases from businesses worldwide will be explored, including multi-nationals and small and medium sized enterprises.
The capstone class synthesizes the learning in the program into a 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 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 and project timeline. Where applicable, students obtain ethics approval for their research project. Each field study includes conducting a situation analysis, developing a sustainability strategic plan for the organization. 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 short reflection paper including a discussion of the case in relation to the application of sustainability frameworks and literature.
The capstone class synthesizes the learning in the program into a 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 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 and project timeline. Where applicable, students obtain ethics approval for their research project. Each field study includes conducting a situation analysis, developing a sustainability strategic plan for the organization. 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 short reflection paper including a discussion of the case in relation to the application of sustainability frameworks and literature.