Managing Sustainability (Autumn 2021)

Abstract

This course presents central concepts and discussions within the junction of business, management, technology and sustainability as well as the role of IT in sustainable transitions. The course is based upon the investigation of real-life cases, with the supplement of literature, theoretical frameworks and exercises. The students work in groups to create a conceptual solution to the challenge posed by a chosen case, presenting it in a synopsis and an oral group exam.

Description

This course is a practice-based course where the students will learn how to understand and manage sustainability. 

The world is facing severe economic and ecological challenges in relation to resource use, the biodiversity crisis, climate change, rising population, and, not least, a growing middle class. The International Panel for Climate Change, IPCC, has given us 10 years to act and reduce CO2 emissions. 75 percent of all terrestrial ecosystems have been degraded by human activity and Denmark must significantly raise its ambitions for biodiversity protection and take on the international leadership for the green transition.

In a Danish context, this means that we should reduce our average per capita CO2 emission from 17 tons to 2-3 tons and reinvent production and consumption to reduce resource use. This challenges our ways of doing business as well as politics, innovation, technology development, and, not least, social behavior.

The students will be introduced to managerial and technological challenges and opportunities around sustainable transition. The course will be planned around a number of specific real-life cases within e.g., smart city development, CO2 accounting, waste management, and a startup’s green solutions. The case owners will pose concrete challenges for the students to work on. The students will work in groups proposing conceptual solutions and discussing the chosen cases. The case owners will help the students get access to relevant data and stakeholders, just as they will be giving the students feedback during the process. The cases include challenges around managing sustainable development. The conceptual solutions may include strategy development, business innovation & development, conceptual design solutions, organizing of partnerships, and guidelines for politics and citizens' involvement. Besides working practically on the challenges, the students will have to discuss the case and their own solutions through literature from sustainability discussions, innovation and business studies, design theory, social science, and technology studies. 

After the course, the students will have hands-on experience and a basic understanding of work practices around sustainable development in the real world. They will be better qualified to contribute to concrete solutions for any company, large or small, with sustainability ambitions, environmental companies or city planning departments, and other relevant actors within sustainable development. Furthermore, the cases at the course may also open possible access to further BA thesis work.  

Formal prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for the course.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Account for the challenges and opportunities around managing sustainability
• Investigate and analyze a specific case of sustainable development
• Develop a conceptual solution for a specific case-challenge within sustainable development
• Account for the process behind the conceptual solution developed
• Discuss the conceptual solution in relation to literature
• Critically reflect upon the challenges and opportunities around managing sustainability

Learning activities

The course is practice based, which means there will be relatively few lectures, and the students will work independently in groups with close supervision from teachers as well as case owners. 

The students will work in groups (3-5 persons) on one of the chosen case challenges. They will be developing conceptual solutions around the challenges given by the case-owners. There will be several in class group activities as well as some assignments, where the students will be presenting the work they are doing to the teachers. 

One time during the course the students are expected to present their ideas and thoughts to a panel of case owners, who will give feedback.

Course literature

Will be shared on LearnIT two weeks before course starts.

Student Activity Budget

Estimated distribution of learning activities for the typical student

• Preparation for lectures and exercises: 15%
• Lectures: 28%
• Exercises: 10%
• Assignments: 10%
• Project work, supervision included: 20%
• Exam with preparation: 10%
• Other: 7%

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D2G: Submission for groups with following oral exam supplemented by the submission. Shared responsibility for the report.

reexam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, External (7-point scale)

Time and date