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Students develop a basic understanding of the dynamic interdependencies in food systems and how they are inherently intertwined with critical issues of climate, health and social justice. Class brings in multiple climate oriented speakers.
Graduate students who develop and apply their business, engineering, scientific, legal, and policy knowledge to optimize market opportunities for cutting-edge climate change solutions to climate tech startups.
This course is intended for people interested in working in impact sectors (climate, food, energy, environment, health, education, affordable housing, racial justice, etc.) Deep dive into asset classes and issues areas including racial justice and/or climate change.
Students will work in teams of four to six, with a mix of backgrounds and areas of study. They will be assigned three technologies/business ideas. In the first half of the course, teams will be asked to evaluate the business ideas as the basis for a new venture. At the course midpoint, they will present their conclusions and choose one project to take forward into the second half of the course. In this portion, they will develop a strategy for a new venture to commercialize or pursue the idea they have chosen.
They will perform an analysis and choose the target customer, develop a business model, create an approach to developing the venture with a view to sustainability, and develop a roadmap for execution in the short term (likely a two year horizon but this is dependent on the nature of the venture and opportunity). The strategy shall be sufficient to serve as a foundation for a first operating plan for the company. Each team will be assigned projects that fall in the categories of: energy transformation, climate resilience, climate & data, and carbon sequestration.
This is the workbook that accompanies my book Sustainability Simplified, releasing late October 2024.
It teaches the Spodek Method experientially. The Spodek Method is a leadership technique that leads people through intrinsic motivation, not extrinsic. It avoids convincing, cajoling, coercing, and otherwise relying on extrinsic motivation, which may get compliance but tends to reinforce beliefs driving the behavior we want to change.
It leads to changing culture.
How should East Light Partners, an early mover in New York State’s growing clean energy market, calculate the financial feasibility of a proposed community solar project situated in Hudson, New York?
Interface has been a leading innovator in the carpet industry, specializing in the manufacturing of carpet tiles for commercial flooring. This case describes the history, context, and technology behind the company’s development of its newest sustainable innovation—carbon negative carpet tiles.
This case outlines various investment options for the CEO of JUST, Inc., Josh Tetrick, as he attempts to capture market share in the protein industry of the future.
In the midst of increasing press scrutiny of the bottled water industry’s environmentally harmful practices, FIJI Water made a series of sustainability promises. The boldest of these was a pledge to go “carbon negative.”
15.270/“Ethical Practice: Leading Through Professionalism, Social Responsibility, and System Design” introduces seminar participants to aspects of ethics in business, with a focus on general management. Over 12 sessions, students explore both the philosophy driving business ethics and the daily challenges that managers face; they also engage on the subject with guest faculty and business and other professional practitioners. Individual sessions take the form of moderated discussion, with occasional short lectures from the instructor.
“Ethical Practice” walks participants through three ever-wider circles of ethical complexity: 1) individual, professional commitments; 2) the rights and responsibilities of corporations; and 3) the social, ethical underpinnings of business as an activity. We seek to define terms central to each of these circles, culminating in a brief historical assessment of business and capital today.
This course addresses America’s persistent, deep divides and the vitality that has allowed it over time to transcend those divides and reshape itself. E Pluribus Unum – Out of many, one – served as the country’s aspirational motto from its inception, yet we are a nation of differences. USA Lab aims to highlight the economic, cultural, social and geographic factors that define the American experience. In this hands-on lab you will contribute to community success through specific projects.
At the same time, your project work will animate the larger ideas we discuss in class, ideas that have informed and shaped this social experiment throughout its history: the idea of a community acting on a shared notion of the common good; the idea of individual liberty as an organizing and defining principle; and the idea that conflicting values can be reconciled. USA Lab projects enable you to anchor these ideas in American communities and see how they are reflected in the experience of people living and working in cities, towns and rural regions across the United States. Through the projects you also have the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives
Over the past 50 years, the notion of corporate environmentalism (later corporate sustainability) was born, grew, and evolved. Though the history of concerns about the state of the natural environment can be traced back more than 300 years, the decade of the 1960s marks the dawn of the “modern” environmental movement. Initially focused on visible forms or air, water, solid and even thermal and aesthetic pollution, attention grew over the next 50 years to include toxic substances, stratospheric ozone, climate change, water scarcity, ecosystem destruction, and species extinction.
An even more recent evolution, triggered by the publication of the Brundtland Commission 1987 report on sustainable development, has witnessed a growing concern for income inequality, living wages, fair representation, secure retirement, transparency, and safe working conditions to round out the “triple bottom line” of the sustainability agenda: environment, equity, and economy. Today, this expanded notion of sustainability has become commonly accepted within both the academy and the corporate sector. Within the academy, what began as a modest offshoot of management science in the early 1990s has grown into a maturing area of study, one that encompasses a wide range of related disciplines. Within business practice, sustainability has entered most domains of corporate activity. Corporations print annual “Sustainability Reports,” insert the term into press releases and CEO speeches, create new positions such as the Chief Sustainability Officer, and gather for conferences on the “sustainability challenge.” A survey by Price Waterhouse Coopers found that 87% of Fortune 1000 CEOs believe sustainability is important to a company’s profits.
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.
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.
Climate change and environmental degradation pose some of the most complex challenges of our time. Building a sustainable future requires active and creative leadership by individuals, organizations, governments, and business firms. This half-credit (.5 cu) course integrates scholarship in leadership theory, environmental and climate management, public policy, and ethics to explore questions such as: What are the greatest challenges in environmental and climate leadership today?
How can a firm, nonprofit organization, or individual lead in this space? How can we integrate environmental and climate considerations into our vision of what makes an individual or an organization a leader? What can we learn about leadership from being in “the environment”? Through the partnership of the McNulty Leadership Program, students will engage in a highly experiential way both in the classroom and in the field on a uniquely customized Leadership Venture over Spring Break. This expedition-style experience with students and course instructors combines both “being in the environment” and engaging in discussions with organizations that are climate and LEGAL STUDIES AND BUSINESS ETHICS 2600, Sarah E. Light, Spring 2023 – Syllabus Page 2 environmental leaders. The transferable nature of the expedition is at the heart of the student’s learning, bringing hands-on lessons to real life.
This course will introduce students to core concepts, learnings, and frameworks in risk and environmental management, with a focus on climate change-related risks. The class will explore a variety of approaches to risk analysis, drawing from practices across financial actors and economics sectors.
The course is broadly broken into three parts, organized into: (1) risk identification; (2) communicating and framing of risk; and (3) risk management. Classes involve a combination of lecture, student participation, guest lecture, and simulation.
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.
Global educators gathered monthly to share best practices for teaching climate in business schools. Access materials and recordings from 5 inspiring sessions.
Climate change is not just a societal issue; it is a business issue. Tomorrow’s business leaders—today’s MBA students—need to understand the operational, financial, strategy, and leadership implications of climate impacts. This brief deck covers the why and the how of how to bring climate topics to the business school classroom—including go-to resources for finding syllabi, case studies, and interactive exercises.