The demands of our human species are outstripping the ability of ecosystems to regenerate the resources we use or process the waste streams we emit. Business is responding to demand by extracting and producing with increasing efficiency. As a result, we are burning through the natural capital that produces ecosystem services while we burn out the human capital that produces goods and services for human consumption.
This course posits that we need to raise the bar. Rather than just being less bad, enterprises need to aim to regenerate the three forms of capital: human, natural and financial. In order to thrive in the long run, providing long-term shareholder value, organizations must steward the health of all three capital accounts. Focusing on intrapreneurship (i.e., driving change within existing organizations) this course will explore the issues of sustainable business practices in order to provide tools and methods to help students understand, respond to, and master:
- Means and methods of creating legitimate, verifiable sustainability performance
- How to inspire and drive human and social capital development within the enterprise and among enterprise stakeholders
- Methods of measuring sustainability performance, and establishing baselines for and driving continuous improvement in performance
- How auditing and reporting on sustainability performance aids capacity building, propagates sustainability in other enterprises and organizations, and supports clear communications about the authenticity and focus of sustainability performance.
