This course steps away from traditional, purely theoretical sustainability models to offer an immersive, experiential approach to sustainable business strategies. Sustainability has transitioned from a localized compliance checklist into a defining competitive feature of the global business macro-environment. To survive, organizations must understand how to identify, map, and mitigate multi-tier sustainability risks across their entire international footprint.

In the modern global business landscape, long-term corporate success is inextricably linked with societal and environmental stewardship. This course offers a comprehensive look at the core principles and practices of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), positioning them as essential pillars of strategic global management. Students will explore how multinational corporations can navigate the complex intersections of economic performance, environmental limits, and social justice while anchoring their operations in robust ethical decision-making and genuine stakeholder engagement.

This course provides students with structural toolkits and frameworks to diagnose systemic complexity and analyze the multi-tier interconnectedness of corporate externalities. Rather than treating sustainability as a cost center, students will learn how to build activities that reinforce, protect, and create new forms of shared value along the entire global supply chain—benefiting the organization, its stakeholders, and society at large.

Course Structure

Foundations of Corporate Sustainability and Value Creation

• Key concepts: CSR, ESG, triple bottom line
• Stakeholder theory and shared value
• Sustainability as a source of competitive advantage
• Sustainability as a value driver

Sustainability in Global Value Chains and Business Models

• Responsible supply chains and due diligence
• Global value chains and responsible sourcing
• Sustainable and circular business models
• Innovation and life-cycle thinking
• Case studies and assignments

ESG Integration, Strategy, and Performance

• ESG in corporate strategy and decision-making
• Link between sustainability and financial performance
• Case studies and assignments

Presentations and Discussions

• Final group presentation and Case study discussion
• Wrap up

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Critically analyze the strategic relationship between sustainability and long-term value creation in global corporations.

• Understand and explain how sustainability contributes to corporate value creation.
• Analyze the relationship between ESG performance and financial outcomes.
• Evaluate sustainability strategies in global value chains and multinational firms.
• Critically assess corporate sustainability practices.
• Develop strategic recommendations for enhancing sustainability-driven value creation.

The course emphasizes real-world application through case studies, corporate sustainability reports, and project-based work, enabling students to critically assess how multinational companies create, deliver, and capture value through sustainability. It also develops analytical and problem-solving skills needed to evaluate sustainability strategies and propose improvements in complex global environments. 

Attendance: A minimum attendance of 80% of course hours is strictly required to pass. Due to the interactive, team-centric nature of the curriculum, attendance during the first (Introductory) and last (Final Presentations) sessions is fully mandatory. Missing sessions directly reduces peer evaluation markers.

AI: The use of generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT) for research, structural ideation, and writing support is permitted as an emerging professional skill. However, students bear full accountability for fact-checking AI outputs. Any use of AI must be transparently disclosed via an acknowledgments paragraph at the end of assignments detailing the prompts used. Undisclosed use violates academic integrity rules and is monitored via plagiarism detection software.

This course is comprised of lectures, structured seminars integrating academic theory with practitioner case examples, case study analysis, group assignments, individual and group presentations with structured peer feedback.

Assessment:

Active class participation – 20%

Group assignment 1 – 15%

Group assignment 2 - 15%

Final group presentation & peer evaluation - 30%

Final group report – 20%

Grading Scale:

·       1 (Excellent): 90% – 100%

·       2 (Good): 80% – 89%

·       3 (Satisfactory): 70% – 79%

·       4 (Sufficient): 50% – 69%

·       5 (Fail): Less than 50%

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