• • Understand and explain how a variety of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors can reflect opportunities and problems for a company,
• • Analyze the conditions and limitations for how and when ESG factors can be seen as relevant (material) for corporate strategy,
• • Understand how corporate sustainability can be embedded into a firm, focusing on reporting, corporate governance, and partnerships, and
• • Analyze concrete problems within a firm’s corporate sustainability strategy by applying the theoretical concepts discussed throughout the course.

This course explores how senior managers can show leadership for corporate sustainability. The course combines some theoretical/conceptual debates in the field of corporate sustainability with in-depth insights into recent practical management approaches. The course explores the “core” content related to  recent discussions of how firms can become more sustainable. It can be combined with the “Governance and Sustainability” concentration where a number of issues (e.g. circularity, sustainable finance) are explored in more depth.

The course is divided into four main parts.

The first part explores some fundamental terms and frameworks (e.g. creating shared value, stakeholder theory, planetary boundaries) that are important for understanding the debate.

The second part discusses different actors that are important when managing for sustainability (e.g. investors, NGOs, governments).

The third part outlines processes that are important when managing for corporate sustainability (e.g., partnerships and reporting).

The final part dives into some selected sustainability problems and discusses strategies to address these (e.g., corruption and climate change).