363-1060-00L Strategies for Sustainable Business
| Semester | Spring Semester 2019 |
| Lecturers | J. Meuer |
| Periodicity | yearly recurring course |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Comment | Limited number of participants. Registration will only be effective once confirmed by email from the organizers. |
Courses
| Number | Title | Hours | Lecturers | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 363-1060-00 S | Strategies for Sustainable Business
 Block course | 21s hrs |
| J. Meuer |
Catalogue data
| Abstract | In this course, students will learn to critically analyze strategies for sustainable business through exploring case studies on three main questions: 1. What is sustainability in business? 2. How do I design a sustainability strategy? 3. How do I implement a sustainability strategy? |
| Learning objective | After the course, you should be able to: 1. Understand and explain sustainability challenges companies are facing; 2. Critique sustainability and related strategies; 3. Evaluate decisions taken by managers; 4. Suggest alternative approaches; 5. Develop action plans; 6. Reflect on strategies for sustainability in their own organizations. You will also learn to apply a range of strategy concepts to sustainability challenges, including leadership, stakeholder management, diversification, and organizational change. |
| Content | Although many companies nowadays report on their sustainability actions, only few successfully integrate sustainability into their business operations. In this seminar, we will cover three main questions that will help you to critically analyze and develop strategies for sustainable business: 1. What is sustainability in business? 2. How do I design a sustainability strategy? 3. How do I implement a sustainability strategy? We teach the course with the case method developed at Harvard Business School. The case studies will allow us to explore from multiple perspectives the many tensions involved in developing strategies for sustainable business. We will distribute case study materials before the sessions, as well as guidelines on how best to efficiently and effectively prepare for case study discussions. You will need to read the materials and to submit short assignments before each class. The sessions are interactive and allow you to step into the role of decision-makers as they face key challenges in integrating sustainability. For example, we will look at the challenges of Fairphone in combining both social and economic goals. Why and how would Patagonia want to encourage customers to buy less rather than more clothing? We also step into the shoes of RWE's CEO Peter Terium as he grapples with ensuring a profitable and sustainable future for the German utility. And using a change management simulation, you will experience why certain approaches to implementing a sustainability initiative in an organization are more successful than others. Our case discussions will help you to apply strategy concepts to real-world sustainability problems and will also serve as a basis for thinking about sustainability in your own company. |
| Literature | We will provide case study material and guidelines for analyzing cases to participants by email several weeks before the seminar. |
| Prerequisites / Notice | After signing up you will first be placed on the waiting list. We will contact all students on the waiting list by 1 March 2019 to confirm their participation in the seminar. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Johannes Meuer (jmeuer@ethz.ch). |
Performance assessment
| Performance assessment information (valid until the course unit is held again) | |
Performance assessment as a semester course | |
| ECTS credits | 2 credits |
| Examiners | J. Meuer |
| Type | ungraded semester performance |
| Language of examination | English |
| Repetition | Repetition only possible after re-enrolling for the course unit. |
| Additional information on mode of examination | Credit points will only be assigned if the following criteria are met: Full attendance of all course days and full completion of all course assignments. |
Learning materials
| No public learning materials available. | |
| Only public learning materials are listed. |
Groups
| No information on groups available. |
Restrictions
| General |  : Special students and auditors need a special permission from the lecturers |
| Places | Limited number of places. Special selection procedure. |
| Priority | Registration for the course unit is only possible for the primary target group |
| Primary target group | Integrated Building Systems MSc (062000)
Management, Technology, and Economics MSc (363000) MAS ETH in Management, Technology, and Economics (365000) starting semester 02 Management, Technology, and Economics (Mobility) (374000) |
| Waiting list | until 21.03.2019 |
| End of registration period | Registration only possible until 03.03.2019 |
