204-035-IO Sustainability Management

Study program:

International Management (MBA)

Academic level and semester:

Master, 3rd semester

ECTS credits/workload per semester:

6 / 150

Contact hours per week/contact hours per semester:

4 / 45

Type/Teaching method:

Lecture
Language of instruction: English

Frequency:

Winter semester

Lecturer:

Prof. Dr. Robert Gabriel, Dr. Joachim Rücker

Content:

This module consists of the two courses: 1. Sustainable Business Management and 2. Business and Human Rights.

Sustainable Business Management
: The course offers a broad overview of all aspects that relate to sustainable business management, from a very practice-oriented perspective. Starting with sustainability drivers and sustainability leaderhip, the students learn about stakeholder dialogue and apply a method to identify the most material sustainability aspects for the sustainability strategy of an organisation. This section concludes with the question how sustainability can create value for businesses. In further classes, the students learn how sustainability must always look at a corporation’s value chain, and how the value chain can be broken down in three perspectives, in order to operationalize sustainability for the different corporate functions: product view, corporate view and supply chain view. The students learn about the different tools and methods typically applied for these perspectives, and see a number of case studies and practical examples for a deeper learning experience. The last part of the course deals with sustainability reporting – objective, standards and critical review of its importance – and with sustainability ratings, used by investors to select the most sustainable assets for the investment portfolio.

Business and Human Rights: The course on Business and Human Rights is focused on familiarizing students with the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP). Students will learn how the UNGP have shaped the way in which businesses react to human rights risks in their sphere of direct influence and beyond.  They will also learn how the UNGP have shaped some key supply chain laws including in Germany and the EU.

Textbooks:

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). GRI-Standards. Can be retrieved from https:// www.globalreporting.org/standards

Recommended for: Undergraduates, graduates
Prerequisites: Background in Business/Economics

Restrictions:

This course cannot be taken together with the following courses: 101-115-IO Marketing and Sustainability and 101-118-IO-01 Sustainability Performance Management & Reporting
Number of undergraduates is limited to 5

Assessment:

Written exam, presentation