Spring 2023 MBA Courses in Sustainable Business

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At a time of indisputable societal and environmental change, Stern MBA students specializing in Sustainable Business and Innovation will examine the unique role of the private sector and gain a broad understanding of how embedding sustainability into core business strategy benefits financial performance and management practices. To learn more about the Specialization and its course requirements, click here.

To assist MBA students as they design their schedules, CSB has assembled the following list of Sustainable Business and Innovation courses offered in the upcoming Spring 2023 semester. 
 

Foundational Course (Required for Specialization)

BSPA-GB.2305: Sustainability for Competitive Advantage
Professor Whelan | MW 3:00 PM - 4:20 PM | In-Person
This course is designed to assist students in developing the knowledge, skills, and perspective they need to understand and address environmental and social challenges in business, so that as leaders they reduce risk, create competitive advantage, and develop innovative services, products, and processes, all while building value for society and protecting the planet.


Discipline

BSPA-GB.2304: Social Entrepreneurship & Sustainable Development
Professor Asamoah | R 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person
What is the way that societies improve and solve problems? What is the purpose of business in society? Is there a role for markets and business in issues of civic good, justice, equality, education, environment, health or collective action? Current economic principles, which underpin our trust in markets are not value neutral. Therefore, how we design “market solutions” to problems should be the focus of vigorous and open debate. Social entrepreneurship is a concept that has re-focused us on the meaning of the goods and social practices we value as citizens in a global society. The purpose of this course is to provide students with the essential conceptual frameworks and tools for creating successful social entrepreneurial ventures, initiatives, programs or partnerships that seek to tackle global poverty and collective action problems.

MGMT-GB.2100: Inclusive Leadership
Professor Basch and Professor Weisberg | M 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person
This course will provide students with the skills and strategies to leverage their talents including female talent and in so doing to become more inclusive and better leaders. It will also identify new approaches that can bolster inclusive leadership. Women and men who take this course will be able to utilize the skills and knowledge taught when making their own career decisions as well as when managing being managed by or collaborating with others of diverse backgrounds.

BSPA-GB.2110: Sustainability & Impact in Supply Chains & Procurement
Professor van Bergen | W 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | Hybrid
In this course, students will learn about the latest advancements in social and environmental sustainability standards, the application of technology (e.g., blockchain and beyond), the engagement of partnerships with NGOs, and business practices and strategies that are being adopted by various companies. Students will consider organizations and sectors such as Walmart and Unilever in consumer-packaged goods (CPG), fashion and home brands, and sustainability and social impact drivers in natural resource-based sectors.

FINC-GB 2360: Sustainable Finance: Innovation and Trends in Capital Markets
Professor Zazzara | R 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person
The goal of the course is to analyze the interplay of Sustainability and Finance and the related new risks and opportunities. In fact, the intersection of ESG and Financial issues generates new risks over longer risk horizons, which should be factored into company valuation frameworks from fundamental analysis. However, understanding, measuring, and pricing these new sources of risk, and also assessing the related opportunities, presents challenges due to the wide breadth of ESG-related issues coupled with data limitations.

FINC-GB 2375: Managing Climate, Cyber, Geopolitical, and Financial Risk
Professor Berner | 6.00 PM-9.00 PM | Online
Businesses and governments now face a growing and immediate array of nonfinancial risks, including climate-related, cyber and operational, and geopolitical risks. Precisely because these critical risks are hard to measure and analyze, firms are putting new resources – people and money– to work to anticipate, manage and mitigate them. To address cybersecurity risks, for example, JP Morgan alone has 3000 employees and spends $600 million annually. Firms are only starting to grapple with existential climate-related risks. And startups are mushrooming to provide assessments to businesses.

FINC-GB.3348: Investing for Environmental and Social Impact
Professor Godeke | W 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person
Impact investments are made with the intention of generating social and environmental impact in addition to a financial return. This course targets students who want to better understand how investment mechanisms can be structured to solve critical social and environmental challenges and to be well positioned to work in the expanding impact investing industry.
 

Issue Area

BSPA-GB.2308: Driving Market Solutions for Clean Energy
Professor Gowrishankar | M 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person
This course is designed to provide students with a rich understanding of the economy-wide energy transitions that are needed in the United States to help curb climate change, with an emphasis on how the private sector can drive such changes. As relevant background, the course will cover energy-related macroeconomic concepts and trends, and provide environmental and international context. It will draw on the instructor’s diverse experiences, readings and other media, classroom discussions, case studies, visiting speakers, and group projects, to explore and debate how such ambitious but necessary transformations may be brought about.

BSPA-GB.2331: Law, Business and Human Rights
Professor Posner | R 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person
Increasingly businesses are confronted with human rights challenges whether in managing global manufacturing supply chains dressing privacy issues in the Information technology industry security issues in the extractive industries or confronting child and forced labor in agriculture. We also will explore how the investment community is addressing these issues. Finally we will look ahead and anticipate where the field of business and human rights is headed and how corporate leaders and lawyers can help develop models of sustainability for businesses in the human rights realm.