Explore Materials
Discover climate course materials and resources.
Search the shared repository of simulations, case descriptions and course syllabi to enhance your own climate-related teaching.
- Case Description
Many challenges remain before the fuel can play a full role in decarbonisation. Explore the issues with this ‘instant teaching case study’
- Topics on: Planning
- Case Description
How should western policymakers use subsidies and tariffs to encourage drivers to switch? Probe the arguments with this ‘instant teaching case study’
- Topics on: Technology
- Case Description
As discarded cheap, disposable clothing clogs the environment, the business model is coming under pressure. Probe the arguments with this ‘instant teaching case study’
- Topics on: Planning
- Case Description
As demand grows for the material used in batteries, this MBA-style case study explores ethical dilemmas over unregulated mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Topics on: Justice
- Case Description
Teaching objectives:
• Understand the challenges of sustainable transition in the fashion industry.
• Identify the key drivers of decarbonization in the fashion industry.
• Understand how sustainability can become part of a business’s strategy, and the trade-off leaders need to navigate in this process.
• Identify the most common implementation challenges of sustainability decisions, and how to overcome them.
Preparation Questions:
1. Should GANNI phase out virgin leather? If yes, what should be the timeline for doing that?
2. What should Lauren do to implement this decision? Reflect on the role of different stakeholders and suggest an action plan.
3. How is sustainability changing the fashion industry? What should firms do about them?
4. How is sustainability changing your industry? What should you do about it?
- Topics on: Justice
- Case Description
By 2023, companies of all sizes and across multiple industries had started to create and publicly announce Net Zero climate commitments that included hydrogen power as a source of clean energy. However, there was no technology available at scale to achieve widespread adoption of hydrogen power. Further, there was no globally recognized body guiding the regulation or implementation of hydrogen technology, leaving companies to set their own standards.
As a result, many questions about the feasibility of hydrogen use and the implications for climate change were left unanswered. For example: Did it make sense for a company to include hydrogen as a renewable energy source in their Net Zero strategy without widespread production of hydrogen? What were the implications when a company incorporated hydrogen technology into its climate commitment?
- Topics on: Technology
- Case Description
Greenwashing is a term that describes the situation where a company’s environmental claims exceed what the corporation is accomplishing through its environmental efforts. Trust in corporate entitles comes into question since consumers, investors, employees, and other interested parties can’t be certain which environmental claims represent real impact on addressing climate change, and which claims are inconsequential. This case study includes examples of corporate environmental efforts. These examples and associated case study questions are designed to support students in assessing whether greenwashing is being committed by a corporation, and the form in which it may be occurring.
- Topics on: Energy, Impact
- Case Description
In Fall 2020, researchers tested how much graduate students at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business understood about climate change science. 144 MBA students took a 4-minute ‘pop quiz’ with eight short questions gauging their general familiarity with climate change. While the quiz was not comprehensive, the results indicated students’ basic knowledge was limited. The implications were stark: if well-educated students at an elite institution were uninformed about the causes of climate change, how effectively could they address climate-related issues as future leaders? Why was there a disconnect between caring about the environment and lacking knowledge of how it was threatened?
- Topics on: Planning
- Case Description
In 1992, 179 countries effectively agreed to end the fossil-fuel age at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Yet thirty years later, the Earth Summit’s ‘new blueprint for international action’ had not stopped the increase of long-lived greenhouse-gas concentrations. In 2022, the United Nations stated ‘carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) can play a significant role in mitigating carbon emissions.’ Some climate experts considered CCUS necessary for reaching net-zero Greenhouse gas emissions. Others thought technology and infrastructure were too nascent to make a difference. Had decades-old pledges to stop fossil fuel use been replaced by capturing emissions?
- Topics on: Technology
- Case Description
In 2020, Carbon180 moved to Washington DC to focus increasingly on policy change that would catalyze carbon removal. President Joe Biden’s administration promised swift action to mitigate climate change. With Carbon180 releasing the first presidential transition book focused on carbon removal, the organization was poised to capitalize on its mission with politics on its side. However, optimism was tempered by realism about the limits of what could be achieved in Congress. Also, how receptive would US corporations be if green policies became legally enforceable? This case study is a continuation of ‘Carbon180: Choosing a Winning Strategy for Carbon Removal.’
- Topics on: Decarbonization
- Case Description
Companies can offset greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by, for example, funding a solar power plant in place of a planned fossil fuel plant. By 2021, the value of traded carbon dioxide (CO2) offsets grew to a record $851 billion, spurred on by public pressure and dire climate change projections. Some corporate leaders consider carbon offsets an essential short-term solution until the world has fully transitioned to a non-fossil carbon economy and reaches net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. Or are offset claims a dangerous distraction because companies can continue business as usual rather than make fundamental changes to their operations?
- Topics on: Planning
- Case Description
Carbon180’s co-founders are at a crossroads in reassessing their organization’s future strategy and vision to drive a new carbon-conscious economy. Because Noah Deich and Giana Amador believe ‘big challenges require big thinking,’ they have taken a multisector approach towards climate change solutions, working in business, policy, and research. This has resulted in some wins while at the same time challenging the resources of their small organization. Also, their funders recommend tighter focus. Carbon180 must weigh competing strategies to catalyze social change and make key decisions on whether a narrow or broad approach will best achieve the goal of reducing carbon emissions.
- Topics on: Decarbonization
- Case Description
- Topics on: Investing, Technology
- Course
The module Sustainable Investments explores how financial investors incorporate sustainability considerations and environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into their investment decisions. The module offers an introduction to the main sustainable investment strategies, the main players (governments, supranational institutions, corporations, investment funds, banks) in the sustainable investment space and the application of sustainable investment in different asset classes. A particular focus in this module is on green and climate change-related investments, but the module also explores the social and ethical dimensions of sustainable investment.
The aim of the module is to familiarise students with the main strategies employed in sustainable investments and the role that sustainable investment can play in addressing societal challenges such as climate change. Using real-world examples and ESG data, students will learn about the key challenges and opportunities that investors incorporating ESG criteria face. Students will also be introduced to the crucial role of financial regulation and voluntary standards/principles in the sustainable investment space.
- Topics on: Investing, Technology
- Course
This course is designed to provide an introduction to the relevance of systems thinking as a way for businesses to promote sustainability:
- Understand the systemic nature of sustainability and the challenges it poses for “business as usual”.
- Appreciate and empathize with the perspectives and demands of different stakeholders brought together around sustainable development issues.
- Comprehend and apply a suite of systems thinking tools that provide insight into the causes and consequences of systemic problems, among them:
- Causal loop diagrams
- Theories of change
- Simulations and experiments
- Identify leverage points for individual and organizational impact in the context of sustainability’s grand challenges.
- Recognize and hone skills that will allow you to become an effective agent for change towards sustainability in organizational settings.
- Topics on: Investing, Technology
- Case Description
High-speed rail (HSR) is a high-performance transportation technology that is time competitive with airplanes and automobiles, and is an environmentally preferable alternative due to its low carbon dioxide emissions.
- Topics on: Analytics, Reporting and Measurement, Strategy, Technology
- Case Description
This case describes Salesforce’s development of Sustainability Cloud, a suite of software tools built to help companies measure, track, and report carbon emissions and other sustainability…
- Topics on: Analytics, Reporting and Measurement, Strategy, Technology
- Case Description
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) was founded in 2010 to develop a common set of sustainability standards for the apparel, footwear, and home textile industries.
- Topics on: Analytics, Investing, Reporting and Measurement, Strategy, Technology
- Case Description
In this case, the CEO of A.P. Moller – Maersk, one of the world’s largest container shipping companies, considers whether competition or collaboration is the right solution to tackle the industry-wide challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Topics on: Analytics, Investing, Strategy, Technology
- Resource
Each of our Erb Institute toolboxes is designed to help you better implement decision-making strategies for sustainability at your company. These toolboxes cover a wide variety of topics and are routinely updated to keep up with changing innovations and trends.
- Topics on: Investing, Technology