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Discover climate course materials and resources.
Search the shared repository of simulations, case descriptions and course syllabi to enhance your own climate-related teaching.
- Course
How to define and deal with social impact and responsibility of the key stakeholders, including corporations; investors; international financial institutions, such as the World Bank; United Nations; foundations; donors; non-government organizations; and development agencies? How to deal with the increased complexity and the dynamic of change of the external ecosystem? What role can business, through its core activities, innovations, and innovative partnerships, play in meeting local and global societal needs in protecting the environment, improving health, education and governance, empowering communities, eradicating poverty, etc.?
Are these needs properly captured by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? What is the relationship between the SDGs and ESG? How to enhance environmental, social, and governance impact through leadership, social intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship, and disruptive social innovations? What are the challenges of measurement and reporting impact? Can technology help solve ESG related problems? Does business have a responsibility to help address these priorities? Are there limits to what can and should be done through business and innovative partnerships? What are successful examples of business and innovative partnerships approaches to meeting these needs and priorities? What is the role of GEN-Z?
- Topics on: Impact, Strategy
- Course
Private and public sector firms increasingly use marketing strategies to engage their customers and stakeholders around social impact. To do so, managers need to understand how best to engage and influence customers to behave in ways that have positive social effects. This course consists of three distinct but connected parts. The first part of the course focuses on social marketing strategies for changing the behavior of a target segment of consumers on key issues in the public interest. The second part explores these initiatives within the context of specific issues (e.g., environmental sustainability, health behaviors, financial decisions, etc.).
The third part of the course examines the growing role of corporate social initiatives as they relate to marketing. For the first time, this course is being offered as an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course supported by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships. The purpose of this program is to offer more practical, collaborative problem-solving experiences as part of the learning experience. As described below, the final group project for this course will be carried out in partnership with local organizations affiliated with the Netter Center.
- Topics on: Impact, Marketing
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Impact, Justice
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Impact, Strategy, Technology
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Finance, Impact
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Impact, Strategy, Technology
- Resource
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.
- Topics on: Decarbonization, ESG, Impact, Justice, Strategy, Technology
- Case Description
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?
- Topics on: Economics, Finance, Impact
- Case Description
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.
- Topics on: Impact
- Case Description
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.
- Topics on: Impact, Strategy
- Case Description
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.”
- Topics on: Impact, Strategy
- Case Description
- Topics on: Analytics, Impact, Investing, Statistics, Strategy, Technology
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Strategy
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Policy, Strategy
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Policy, Strategy
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Strategy
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Operations, Strategy
- Course
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.
- Topics on: Energy, Reporting and Measurement, Strategy
- Resource
Global educators gathered monthly to share best practices for teaching climate in business schools. Access materials and recordings from 5 inspiring sessions.
- Topics on: Strategy
- Resource
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.
- Topics on: Strategy