Programme Outlines and Overviews

This course introduces students to theories, perspectives, and concepts in the fields of sustainability including social and ecological sustainability. The course provides frameworks to create, scale, and replicate sustainable enterprises as a means of eliminating poverty and/or ecological degradation. The course pays particular attention to the regulatory and voluntary frameworks that sustainable enterprises are expected to relate to, in connection with these themes – at the local, regional, and international level. The content reflects the various aspects relevant to developing a sustainable enterprise including: - sustainable development and sustainability – including earth system science, planetary boundaries, challenges of poverty, exclusion, environmental degradation, and climate change, - perspectives on economic growth and implications for sustainability regulatory and voluntary frameworks for enterprise development– including the triple bottom line and the embedded view of sustainability, - concepts and models describing sustainable organizations – including social enterprises and ecological enterprises, - creation and development for different markets – including the bottom of the pyramid, circular economy, and the lifestyle of health and sustainability. **Connection to Research and Practice** In “The Sustainable Enterprise - Social and Ecological Perspectives” we will be exploring and applying the latest scientific literature on some of the greatest challenges facing business, both large and small. The course activities build students’ abilities to understand and make use of insights from applying and contrasting perspectives, according to the Inner Development Goals. Students will become aware of the connection between scientific research and business management practices by studying that linear economic activities, that is, those which are based on “take-make-consume-waste”, are now an unsustainable way to pursue economic growth. Instead, the course presents cases to examine how enterprises build and/or apply alternative perspectives to reimagine the future of enterprises. Sustainability is becoming a major topic of research at JIBS, being a key research domain for both MMTC and CeFEO research centers.