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The course is especially useful to those interested in using data to measure, disclose, and communicate the value created through corporate efforts focused on sustainability.
Water is the lifeblood of business. Virtually every business imaginable — everything from oil refining to semiconductor manufacturing to cloud computing — requires copious supplies of fresh water. However, there is a fixed amount of water on earth, and in any given place, the supply, demand, and quality of freshwater can change. As climate change makes many parts of the world hotter and drier, it is increasingly important for today’s business leaders to be able to understand water challenges and to implement solutions that will enable businesses to thrive in the future. In addition to understanding and navigating water quality and quantity challenges, business leaders must operate in a highly regulated environment.
Water is regulated at the multinational, national, regional, state and local levels, and it’s important to understand who the key external stakeholders are and how to engage with them in productive ways. THE BUSINESS AND GOVERNANCE OF WATER – THE WHARTON SCHOOL 2 Finally, future business leaders should learn about the growth opportunities in the global water sector. Water is an $800 billion global industry whose value chain includes operating water utilities, engineering firms, technology companies, and financial services firms.
The financial significance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors and stakeholder opinions of the acceptability of a firm’s operations (i.e., the social license to operate) is mounting yet the data, frameworks and tools informing investors, consultants and corporates is unreliable. The course provides students novel data, frameworks and tools than can guide the alignment of stakeholder opinions on ESG factors, valuation and strategy.
Estimates of the capital expenditures necessary to achieve a net-zero emissions and the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming target exceed $50 Trillion over the next 30 years. Estimates of the economic damage caused by racial injustice in the United States alone surpass $16 Trillion. While such costs may seem overwhelming, $35.3 Trillion (36% of total global assets under management) actively weigh ESG issues in 2020, up from $13.3 Trillion (21% of global AUM) in 2012. During this same period, the share of executives, board members, and investment managers who consider climate risk, racial justice and other ESG issues to be material to their business decisions has doubled. If a business case for ESG issues can be demonstrated, pools of capital are poised to make an impact.
This course is about the economics of energy and environmental markets. Topics include the drivers of supply and demand, organized spot and futures markets, market power and regulation, energy transportation and storage, environmental policy, climate change, innovation, and the energy transition.
The course takes an operations point of view to look at companies and industries in the service sector. It builds on conceptual frameworks and draws upon examples from a wide range of service operations: health care, hospitality, transportation, retailing, food service, financial services, among others. Note that this course has a point of view. It focuses on how to design and manage operations to create value for customers, employees, and investors simultaneously. It is possible to create value for investors by leaving customers or employees behind. Consistent with the mission of MIT Sloan, we will not learn how to do that.
Introduction to Operations Management course (15.761) is a pre-requisite or co-requisite for this course. The course is primarily case based. There is also a course project (see below).
This class teaches modern tools and methods for product design and development. The cornerstone is a project in which teams of management, engineering, and industrial design students conceive, design, and prototype a new product or service. The class is primarily intended for Sloan MBA students (particularly the Entrepreneurship and Innovation track and the Leaders for Global Operations program) and for MIT engineering graduate students (particularly mechanical engineering and manufacturing master’s programs). The course is jointly taught with Rhode Island School of Design for industrial design students as a senior studio.
Full syllabus to be posted soon!
Climate risk is real. It is costly to the economy, society, and the world, as evidenced by high and ever-increasing Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates. Most businesses and corporations, meanwhile, experience climate risk mostly indirectly, via policy, technology, and market risks. This class focuses on climate risks head on, exploring to which extent they also pose direct financial risks to business now and in the near future. Along the way, we will answer a number of questions, such as: If climate change is so costly, why does it not show up (more) in asset prices? If climate pollution is so bad, why is polluting so profitable? We will also dive into questions around insurability of physical assets like real estate, stress testing of financial assets, and corporate scenario planning. Lastly, we will discuss risk as opportunity for those relatively better able to take advantage of risks and uncertainties.
Plants are at the intersection of at least a dozen problems and opportunities in our food system: climate change, personal, public and planetary health, nutrition insecurity, biodiversity, social justice, food access, diversity and inclusion, soil health, law and policy, technology, animal welfare, and antibiotic resistance. Build critical systems thinking competencies at the intersection of agriculture, nutrition, climate science, behavioral science, economics, entrepreneurship and ethics with plant-centric food systems.
The Impact Investing course provides students with an overview of the entire spectrum of investing approaches used by impact investors. This is done through a combination of cases and lectures by the professor, and guest presentations by leading impact investors and thought leaders. The substantive areas covered include: (1) how investors and investment managers and advisors select and structure their impact investments; (2) the differing financial return and social impact return expectations of impact investors; and (3) the challenges and methodologies for measuring impact.
This block week course is designed around the different types of impact investments from the perspective of investors, and is composed of four modules:
Many organizations are now (finally!) attempting to incorporate environmental sustainability initiatives into their strategic planning and day-to-day operations. The success or failure of these initiatives often rests on the ability of leaders to implement and manage the change process. This course will focus on the organizational change process, with particular focus on creating and managing transformational change around sustainability initiatives.
Note: Course taught at Baruch College, City University of New York
This course is intended for MBA students interested in the science, economics and business impact of Climate Change and the implications of Climate Change for their career. The course is designed to provide an understanding of Climate Change through the lens of both risk and opportunity and how Climate Change is affecting decision-making in business.
What are the skills that this course is intended to develop?
• Understanding and communicating the business implications of a changing climate
• Developing strategies for business sustainability in the context of a changing climate
• Understanding the actions businesses can take to improve the climate outlook
• Helping businesses prepare for the emergence of a climate-aware economy
The field of Climate Change and its relevance for business strategy is a rapidly evolving domain. Each of us brings our individual knowledge, experience and perspective to the conversation. It is my hope that each of you will share your knowledge freely with the class. For that to work, it is essential that you commit to a process of co-discovery: you are asked to go the extra mile in terms of bringing value to our class. While there is no short-list of easy solutions to the matters we will cover, there is a path forward for us in making wiser, more informed climate decisions.
Climate Tech refers to a broad range of technologies designed to mitigate the drivers and impacts of climate change. Development and commercialization of these technologies is essential if humanity is to maintain global prosperity while also avoiding catastrophic climate change. This immersion course provides students with the opportunity to work on a real-world technology to address climate change.
Students will be placed in teams of four, composed of two CBS students and two SEAS students. Student teams will be matched with venture capital funds actively financing climate tech that have identified an innovative technology for mitigating or adapting to climate change. Students will meet virtually with their assigned venture fund at the beginning of the course, during a mid-point check-in, and at the end of the course for the final presentation. The funds will provide guidance on technologies, sectors, and approaches most likely to receive early-stage investments.
Each team will be tasked with assessing their assigned technology on (i) technical viability, (ii) commercial opportunity, and (iii) impact on mitigating or adapting to climate change. The final course deliverables are a presentation to classmates, a presentation to each team’s assigned investment fund, and a written report to the investment fund. Students are also required to complete a reflections assignment at the conclusion of the course. During weeks 4 – 11, when you’re working with the venture capital fund, you will spend up to nine hours every week doing independent research, collaborating with the fund, and completing assignments.
The traditional financial reporting model is deficient in two fundamental respects: (i) we set the cost of natural capital used by the business to zero; and (ii) we either under-emphasize or ignore accounting for externalities, both positive and negative, imposed by the business on other stakeholders.
The objective of this class is exploring one major aspect of natural capital and its attendant risks—related to climate. The focus is mostly on how companies, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, measure, disclose, govern and hence manage (or sometimes mis-manage) climate risk exposures.
The Paris Agreement of 2015 was meant to mobilize a global response to the threat of climate change, amid growing concerns by scientific experts, as documented in a series of IPCC reports. Since the Paris agreement was signed, hundreds of firms have made net zero emissions promises. Regulators and the investment community has been pushing firms to evaluate their climate risk exposure and the impact thereof on the firm’s business model and value drivers.
5.S05 explores Building Sector Energy and Climate Innovations; such as technologies and services that strategically enhance building efficiency and electrification; incorporate site solar, battery storage, and electric vehicles; and are enabled to integrate with today’s increasingly renewable electric grids. Such innovations provide a foundation for a New Era for Energy Management: technology and business innovations supported by climate-centric public policies as well as a robust Green Capital market. These enable the energy management industry (over $200 billion worldwide) to rapidly grow due to: • Strong economics: with technology and price trends which are positive and dramatic. • Needed for Climate: Large scale energy management is a substantial and essential component of world carbon balance, and with no net cost (positive NPV).
Strong Demand for energy that is Digitized, Decarbonized, and Democratized: especially when market innovations make it costless (up front), riskless, effortless, and for some, a choice as to how and where their energy is produced (Prosumers). With enabling support from the instructors, materials, and assignments, class members examine and reflect on emerging technology, analytic, business, and policy innovations that help achieve today’s imperatives for a sustainable and equitable future. We then consider together strategies that may further advance Energy Management’s impact and benefits
Global challenges such as urbanization, food security, water crises, inequality, natural resource degradation, and climate change increasingly present material risks to corporations. Yet these same trends can create profitable opportunities for companies if innovation is harnessed to create products and business models that provide solutions for growing global markets.
In the course, we will examine how businesses assess their risks and opportunities, and how they develop strategies to promote more sustainable practices. (Formerly called “Sustainable Business Strategy”)
The course concentrates in four thematic fields: Ecosystem Services, Economic Valuation, Climate Change and Water. These topics will be assessed within a business context.
The financial significance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors and stakeholder opinions of the acceptability of a firm’s operations (i.e., the social license to operate) is mounting yet the data, frameworks and tools informing investors, consultants and corporates is unreliable. The course provides students novel data, frameworks and tools than can guide the alignment of stakeholder opinions on ESG factors, valuation and strategy.
Estimates of the capital expenditures necessary to achieve a net-zero emissions and the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming target exceed $50 Trillion over the next 30 years. Estimates of the economic damage caused by racial injustice in the United States alone surpass $16 Trillion. While such costs may seem overwhelming, $35.3 Trillion (36% of total global assets under management) actively weigh ESG issues in 2020, up from $13.3 Trillion (21% of global AUM) in 2012. During this same period, the share of executives, board members, and investment managers who consider climate risk, racial justice and other ESG issues to be material to their business decisions has doubled. If a business case for ESG issues can be demonstrated, pools of capital are poised to make an impact.
This course explores how strategic awareness and risk management influence the relationship between the business,
environment, and society. Students will learn to identify and manage risks associated with sustainability initiatives
through project-based learning. The course highlights the critical role of strategic planning and risk assessment in the
management of projects and their impact to business sustainability in a complex global landscape
This course focuses on the social and environmental responsibilities of business that may extend beyond profit maximization. In 2019, the Business Roundtable composed of leading chief executive officers of U.S.-based companies released a statement that resurrected and reinforced interest in this view. (See reading link for Class 2 below under Course Outline.)
This view contrasts with a traditional approach famously expressed by the economist Milton Friedman that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” Although Friedman acknowledged normative side constraints to the profit motive—namely, a need to conform to the “basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom”—he did not see business itself as playing a central role in the creation and sustenance of these “basic rules.”
The profit-maximizing view of business purpose is the one most frequently modeled in business school classes. This course presents students with the opportunity to explore an alternative perspective: that business owes a “social responsibility” that includes, but goes beyond, profits.