Course Description
This course provides students with an introduction to the concepts of sustainability and corporate social responsibility in a business context. The course takes a managerial perspective, and incorporates a global orientation. Topics like the triple bottom line, global warming, the product life cycle, and carbon neutral are covered. Students are urged to embrace the belief that corporations need to be socially responsible, as well as sensitive to environmental concerns.
Course Content
- Important arguments in developing sustainable business practices
- Objectives of sustainability from a business perspective, and from a social perspective
- Metrics for sustainability
- Natural resources used in industry, and the social and environmental implications of their use
- Motives for businesses to conduct themselves in a sustainable manner
- Economic, societal, and environmental factors that drive business decisions
- Triple Bottom Line
- Corporate social responsibility, and the different stakeholders, local communities, and international communities that are affected by what corporations do
- Standards and regulations for CSR – the challenges
- Green marketing, green consumers
- Eco-efficiency; how saving energy and reducing waste makes sense for businesses
- The product life cycle from a sustainability/corporate social responsibility perspective
- Cradle 2 Cradle concepts and considerations
- Global warming; the Greenhouse Effect
- Arguments in favour and against radically altering the world as we know it to avoid climate change
- Carbon neutral; Carbon offsetting; Cap and Trade; Carbon Tax
- Benefits both corporations and individuals derive from reducing their carbon footprints
- Political and international issues in sustainability/corporate social responsibility
Learning Activities
Lectures will be used to introduce specific areas of study and to provide background information. Case studies, discussions and videos will constitute the framework and focus of much of the course. Students will learn through analyzing business situations and sharing ideas in class.
Means of Assessment
| Term tests |
25% |
| Midterm examination |
20% |
| Cases, projects |
25% |
| Participation |
10% |
| Final examination |
20% |
| Total |
100% |
STUDENTS MUST COMPLETE ALL COMPONENTS OF THE COURSE TO OBTAIN CREDIT FOR THE COURSE.
Students may conduct research as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans, which can require obtaining Informed Consent from participants and getting the approval of the Douglas College Research Ethics Board prior to conducting the research.
Learning Outcomes
The overall objective of this course is to provide the student with a solid working knowledge of the emerging importance of sustainability and social responsibility as business considerations, and to understand how they are integrated into the vision and planning of the firm. On successful completion of the course, the student should:
- Possess an in-depth understanding of the triple bottom line and how all three of its elements are equally important
- Understand the concept of sustainability, and how corporations might comport themselves in a sustainable manner
- Understand who are all of the stakeholders, and how they are affected by the actions of corporations
- Be able to demonstrate the different ways that concerns for the environment are demonstrated
- Comprehend the different ways to measure how corporations affect society and the environment
- Understand the whole product life cycle and how the stakeholders are affected by it
- Understand global warming and how all stakeholders can play their part to prevent it
- Know what it means to be carbon neutral and the steps that can be taken to get there
Textbook Materials
Strategic corporate social responsibility: stakeholders in a global environment? by Werther & Chandler 2008
The debate over corporate social responsibility by Steve Kent May, George Cheney, Juliet Roper 2007
Corporate social responsibility and international development by Michael Hopkins 2007
or equivalent materials