Program
Curriculum

Sustainability | Context and Drivers

• Develop your definition of sustainability, based on your professional and personal experiences.
• Determine how sustainability impacts your organization.
• Within the context of your workplace, develop an operational definition of sustainability.
• Analyze the economic, social, and policy drivers of sustainability.

Justin Bull

Sustainability & Corporate Strategy

• Evaluate various sustainability strategies.
• Explore the history of corporate engagement with sustainability issues, as well as the changes to the external environments corporations face.
• Explain the Five Stages of Organizational Learning.
• Analyze the Four Stages of Issue Maturity.
• Describe materiality assessments and why these exercises are important in guiding an organization’s strategy.

Mark Cohen

Shared Value

• Describe examples of defensive corporate sustainability strategies.
• Discuss examples of offensive corporate sustainability strategies.
• Identify four traditional rationales for a sustainability strategy.
• Discuss the steps organizations can follow to create shared value opportunities.

Mark Cohen

Sustainability Metrics and Driving Forces

• Examine the driving forces, both internal and external, of sustainability reporting.
• Explore the reporting options for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.
• Determine the various sustainability issues to consider for reporting.
• Analyze how sustainability reporting is managed.

Jeff Gowdy

Reporting Frameworks

• Compare and contrast the various sustainability reports.
• Define the leading frameworks available for companies to align their sustainability reports.
• Describe the goals of integrated reporting.
• Distinguish between integrated reporting versus sustainability and ESG reporting.
• Describe the goals of ESG, issue-specific reporting.
• Explain the main reporting frameworks that organizations utilize.
• Analyze best practices in sustainability reporting and the scoring mechanisms of the reporting frameworks covered.

Jeff Gowdy

Sustainability Across the Value Chain

• Analyze how companies operate across the four main stages of the value chain.
• Explore sustainability issues across the value chain stages.
• List the five most common E, S, and G issues addressed by companies within their own operations.
• Describe examples of a manufacturer’s indirect influence once their products leave their operational control.
• Discover examples of companies partnering with other companies to promote the sustainable use of products.
• Examine new and improved sustainable practices in how companies have changed the strategies for their products from “end of life” to “next use.”

Jeff Gowdy

Goal Setting, Net Zero, and Climate Change Strategy

• Identify what key performance indicators are used to measure environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.
• Examine the goal-setting process around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.
• Describe the difference between zero emissions and net zero emissions.
• List examples of zero, net zero, and net positive goals.
• Discuss some basic differences between offsets and renewable energy credits (RECs).
• Define the term net positive and explore the Net Positive Project.
• Analyze what it takes for companies to become more net positive.
• Discover how climate science is the driving force behind climate change strategy across business sectors.
• Explore initiatives organizations are taking to limit climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).

Jeff Gowdy

Choices, Science, Strategy, and Systems in Sustainability 

• Discuss complex comparisons that your organization might be facing in implementing its sustainability strategies.
• Analyze the benefits and risks of an organization implementing its sustainability strategies.
• Recognize models and principles that drive an organization’s sustainability program.
• Describe how you could apply the science system strategy approach to your organization.

Mark Cohen

Motivation, Metrics, & Incentives

• Explore the process of evaluating your company’s current organizational design.
• Examine a framework to analyze the structure of organizations and incentives.
• Analyze what motivates employees to engage in sustainable behavior.
• Discuss the steps for developing a performance metric consistent with your organization’s sustainability goals.

Mark Cohen

Transformative Technologies, Transitions, and Expanding the Scope of Sustainability

• Recognize how the circular economy impacts an organization’s sustainability initiatives.
• Distinguish the impacts of the fourth industrial revolution on the physical, digital, and biological worlds.
• Examine transformative technologies and why some technologies are quickly adopted in their markets while others take time to catch on.
• Discuss examples of the four types of technology transitions.
• Explore the inter-dependencies of sustainability to other social problems and traditional environmental issues.

Justin Bull & Mark Cohen