• • 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 two 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. It also exposes participants to different perspectives on corporate sustainability, such as a strategic perspective and a stakeholder perspective.

The second part discusses how to implement sustainability strategies into corporations, focusing on real-life ESG issues such as climate change, human rights, and anti-corruption. This part also discussed how to communicate sustainability to external and internal audiences. 

• Teacher’s own research
• Models

• Discussion, critical reflection, modelling