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 2026 semester. You may also view a recording of our course preview and Professor Q&A event here to learn about some of the fall offerings directly from the professor's themselves. 

BSPA-GB.2305: Sustainability for Competitive Advantage

Professor Taylor | MW 3:00 PM - 4:20 PM | In-Person

Professor Ehiemere | W 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

In this course, students will develop an effective leadership perspective through pursuit of the following learning objectives: 1) to become familiar with the key environmental and social issues affecting business today, 2) to understand the evolution of corporate response - from compliance to engagement to innovation, 3) to begin to develop some of the skills required for leading in this new social and political environment (e.g. multi-stakeholder management), 4) to explore the efficiencies and innovations being developed by corporate leaders in pursuit of sustainability, 5) to explore innovations in finance (true cost accounting, net positive value, social impact bonds), and 6) to become familiar with the latest consumer insight research on sustainability. In short, this course is multi-disciplinary, and seeks to integrate across the functions of the firm to arrive at an effective firm-wide leadership sensibility.

MGMT-GB.2100 Inclusive Leadership

Professors Weisberg & Rashid | M 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

In today’s rapidly changing global economy, companies with the best talent are at a competitive advantage and inclusive leadership skills are increasingly at a premium. This course will provide students with the skills and strategies to be inclusive leaders: to recognize their own agency to interrupt implicit bias, develop and support allies of diverse backgrounds, address microaggressions, and to leverage the talent on their teams to achieve business outcomes. Students will be able to utilize the lessons of the course in their own career decisions as well as when managing, being managed by, or collaborating with others. The course is highly interactive so that students can learn from each other as well as guest speakers such as the former CEO of Jamba Juice and author of Anti-Racist Leadership, the head of multicultural marketing at Johnson & Johnson, the Chief Impact Officer at Advantage Capital, and the Vice-Chairman of global capital markets at Morgan Stanley. Any student who wants to deliver better results through better people's decisions should take this class.

BSPA-GB. 2308 Driving Market Solutions for Clean Energy

Professors Gowrishankar & Berlin | T 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.2311 Social Entrepreneurship India

Professors Kowal and Taparia | T 4:55 PM - 5:50 PM | In-Person

Social Entrepreneurship India, is an experiential learning course that explores social entrepreneurship as a business mechanism for implementing effective, innovative and market-based solutions while simultaneously delivering tremendous value to society. During the first half of the semester, social entrepreneurship will be explored - including how it fits into broader economic and management frameworks illustrated by high impact case studies and how to identify social sector problems, brainstorm solutions, think about business design, and measure impact. The class will also examine these ideas through the lens of India, the world’s most populous nation and where social entrepreneurship is operating at the cutting edge. Over spring break, the class will travel to India and visit several best-in-class business enterprises in an urban city environment and then visit India's rural region to work with a community-based nonprofit which is building its own community-oriented business incubator for local entrepreneurs. During the second half of the semester, students will apply the principles of social entrepreneurship towards completing a project that supports the growth and impact of this on-ground incubator.

BSPA-GB.2331 Law and Business and Human Rights

Professor Posner | M 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. Over 14 sessions this course will examine these and other issues divided into three segments The first segment will examine the origins and substantive content of international human rights standards. It will examine the implementation of these standards at a national and international level and the range of remedies when governments fail to comply with these standards.The second segment will explore the effects of globalization and the increasing imperative for global businesses to address human rights challenges in their core business operations. These issues become especially relevant in states with a weak rule of law and a lack of willingness or capacity to protect the rights of their own people. In addressing the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights we will apply a framework similar to that which we discussed in the first segment standard-setting implementation and the provision of appropriate remedies. the third segment we will take a case study approach examining how business and human rights issues manifest themselves in global manufacturing the extractive industries information and communication technology companies and 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.

BSPA-GB.3110 Work, Wisdom, and Happiness

Professor Dewji | T 9:00 AM - 11:50 PM | In-Person

Professor Haidt | M 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

For centuries, work was regarded as nothing but toil, a requirement for earning one's daily bread. But in recent decades, expectations about work have been transformed as has its very nature. While it still provides one's daily bread, it is also regarded as a major opportunity for people to find purpose, meaning, and happiness in their lives. In this course, students study the latest research on what makes people happy at work, on how happiness at work improves the quality of work, on how people and organizations develop wisdom, and on what makes a career not just successful but meaningful. We will also discuss some of the impediments both individual and organizational to doing meaningful and satisfying work. Students will develop their own visions of their ideal career, and of the ideal company they'd like to lead or work for.

ACCT-GB.3153 Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles Industry

Professor Gode | T 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

This course analyzes renewable energy and electric vehicles industries from the perspective of someone who wants to start these businesses, manage them, or invest in them. It covers the following: (1) The business drivers for key renewable energy and electric vehicle technologies and their trends (2) Simplified financial models of renewable energy projects (3) Understanding and analyzing financial statements of renewable energy companies and electric vehicles companies. Please find a video with an introduction from Prof. Gode here. 

BSPA-GB.3318 Corporate Governance

Professor Brenner | W 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM | In-Person

Professor Brenner | M 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

Corporate Governance has evolved to be one of the more compelling and challenging subjects in business, law and society. Governance is a multi-faceted topic that has economic, ethical, legal, regulatory, and sociological dimensions. Its impact has increased with the ever-growing power and scope of modern business corporations and of institutional shareholders who own an increasing proportion of public companies’ equity securities. The imperfections of many companies’ corporate governance have been demonstrated by a distressingly long list of spectacular business and governance failures. These failures - accounting frauds, excessive executive compensation packages, value-destroying market strategies, bankruptcies, and still evolving aspects of the 2008-2009 financial crisis - have imposed substantial costs on shareholders, other stakeholders, and society at large

MGMT-GB.3358 Leading Innovation to Address Climate Change

Professor Carty | M 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

Addressing climate change is the greatest opportunity for social impact of our time. This class educates students on leading action to mitigate climate change and achieve climate adaptation through innovation and accelerating the diffusion of innovations. We will cover a broad range of climate innovations in domains including power generation, buildings, transportation, industry, agriculture, and land use. In addition, we will explore innovations for carbon removal, climate adaptation, enabling technologies that are accelerating climate innovation, and speculative new approaches such as geoengineering.  

We will develop a playbook on how to: a) assess an early-stage climate technology innovation, b) assess the market potential, and c) create a plan to accelerate innovation diffusion. A final student project focusing on a climate innovation will provide experiential learning through applying this playbook to an innovation of the student’s choice.