Sustainability has become a key feature defining the business environment, with increasing pressures for organizations to engage with the sustainability agenda. Stakeholder scrutiny, buyer pressure and societal expectations have led to increases in sustainability reporting, transparency and benchmarking. It has become embedded in tendering processes and supplier contracts in B2B transactions.  Some SMEs position themselves as being sustainable enterprises, positioning themselves as providing solutions to the complex grand challenges facing society, where sustainability is an opportunity to create both economic and societal value. However, there have been challenges targeted towards businesses of “window dressing”, “cherry picking” of low hanging fruit and superficial engagement. Often sustainability is seen as a bolt on to key business activity, with key risks not addressed or integrated.

SMES are critical in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SMEs have the potential to drive change by integrating sustainability principles into business practice. This course provides frameworks and toolkits to assess sustainability risks and opportunities for SMEs, to develop strategy and manage sustainability within the business. The course takes students through the journey from initial assessment, strategy design, management and assessment to create an integrated approach to sustainability.

This involves developing knowledge and skills that enable participants to:

a) Understand the principles of sustainability and their relevance to SMES

b) Strategy development for sustainability for SMEs 

c) Understand how to engage and involve stakeholders in sustainability initiatives.

d) Acquire knowledge of tools available to implement and measure sustainability within SMEs.

e) Make recommendations to both protect and build value in the long term.

Minimum attendance is 80% of course hours, the first and the last session is mandatory. Attendance is a firm requirement of this course as many of the learning experiences take place during class and through interactions with peers. The attendance requirement is met if students are present for at least 80% of the scheduled sessions. Students who fail to meet the attendance requirement will be de-registered from the course. Missing sessions will affect peer evaluation and may also affect other graded components realized during class. In the exceptional case that you cannot attend a session due important reasons e.g., sick leave, quarantine), you should provide proof of this.

A wide range of approaches will be used during the course, including live cases provided by companies here in Vienna. These cases will enable participants to apply a range of different theories, frameworks and tools in order to make recommendations to businesses on both the strategy and management of sustainability.  Within class there will be a lot of informal group work, and mini cases, which enables experiential learning through application, preparing students for the final assessment- a presentation and report with recommendations to the business.

• Group presentation - 30%
• Group report - 30%
• Individual reflection - 30%
• Group peer assessment – 10%

Students will be assessed on:

1. Knowledge on the relevant theories.
2. The ability to apply relevant theories.
3. The ability to understand the strategic issues in the cases they present, to use the appropriate analytical techniques, and to marshal the relevant data.
4. The quality of the presentations, the written report, and the discussion; quality in this context means the clarity and persuasiveness of each bit of work. This implies an ability to work both in teams and individually.

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I expect that some of you will use AI (ChatGPT and similar tools) in the your studies and potentially also for assignments. There is, per se, nothing bad about that. You will need to learn how to use AI, that is, AI usage is an emerging skill. We will not focus on how to use AI in this class but I would like to highlight a couple of key points:

Be aware of the limits of AI!

• Your prompts and their quality will drive the quality of the output. You will need to refine your prompts in order to get good outcomes.
• Don’t trust anything that the tool is writing. If it gives you some numbers or facts, you should assume that it is wrong unless you can either fact check with other sources, or unless you can be sure that you know that the information is correct. Ultimately, you will be responsible for errors or any other types of limitations that the tool produces.
• AI is a tool and you need to acknowledge the use of it. Please include a paragraph at the end of any assignment that explains if and how you have used AI and what prompts you have used. Failure to do so is violates your pledge of academic honesty and can have serious consequences.
• Note that the use of AI tools can be detected by WU plagiarism software, which I may activate for every assignment. In case that there is indication for undue AI usage, first, an audit interview with the student will be scheduled. Follow-up consequences will be determined afterwards.
• In this context, please note also the official WU guidelines on plagiarism: https://www.wu.ac.at/en/students/my-program/masters-student-guide/course-and-exam-information/plagiarism/"