Program Curriculum

In this module, we look at key foundations of sustainability. First, we look at the fundamentals of sustainability science. Here we review sustainability and sustainable development, focus on the environmental and social macro-environment for business, and look at analytical tools such as systems or transition theory to understand various sustainability challenges. Second, we consider how sustainability refines the role of business and management. We look at cross-cutting issues such as life-cycle thinking, impact analysis, and the business case for sustainability. Third, we discuss how these specifics of sustainability require a cross-functional, integrated management approach, highlighting selected touch points of this module to other modules. Fourth, we zoom in on specific sustainability issues, such as climate change. The idea here is to provide the necessary background knowledge on selected sustainability megatrends and to apply course concepts in context.

Despite this emphasis on applying course material to concrete examples, we focus on something other than how-to blueprints and checklist knowledge. Instead, we allow ourselves the luxury of looking at the big picture first. The idea is to lay a general foundation that will help connect the dots and facilitate a deeper dive into the modules that follow.

Industry is responsible für 20% of global CO2 emissions and more than 30% of global energy consumption. Therefore, the industry today is faced with the challenge of reducing both. Technologies enable sustainability and there are already great technologies available, which need to be applied to reach the sustainability goals. Siemens’ technologies help decarbonize sectors like industry, buildings, and transport that account for nearly three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. After giving an overview over core technologies enabling and fostering sustainability, the module will focus on the most urgent task for achieving climate goals through a significant reduction of CO2 emissions and increase of resource efficiency.

Along the lifecycle of a product there are different opportunities to increase sustainability. From robust eco design and energy efficient manufacturing to product carbon footprint tools and circularity. Several technologies and their impact will be regarded and incorporating practical examples will be shown.

Sustainability and the digital transformation have three dimensions: individual, economic, and social. The lecture will analyze topics related to “Digital Transformation for Sustainability” and “Sustainability of the Digital Transformation” within each of these dimensions by covering several topics, including:

Individual: The lecture will discuss the relationship between individuals’ IT use behaviors and sustainability and the impact of digital transformation on individuals’ health, well-being and stress.

Economy: The lecture will explore the relationship between digital transformation and the circular economy, strategies for sustainable digital transformation, and the role of digital transformation in automation discovering challenges like fairness, transparency, and accountability. The lecture will also cover the governance of digital transformation for sustainability and the concept of value-sensitive design and engineering.

Social: The lecture will examine the impact of digital transformation on the digital divide, privacy, and data protection. Additionally, the lecture will explore the ethical challenges that arise in the information society.

The demand for more corporate responsibility is driven by the unprecedented challenges of the 21st century such as climate change, demographic change, resource scarcity, and urbanization. Companies are expected to contribute to the solution of the respective problems for the sake of society, but they will also have to do so for their own sake in order to stay competitive in the long run.

Thus, corporate responsibility and sustainability have long moved beyond the notion of being “add-ons” or “altruistic concepts”. They are now considered to be topics of strategic nature that need to be managed actively. Thus, we will take a strategic approach to corporate responsibility and discuss how a coherent and holistic CR strategy can be developed and implemented.

The successful development and implementation of a CR strategy is not possible without the creation of the necessary organizational environment. Skepticism and resistance have to be overcome, which is why sustainable leadership is of vital importance. Therefore, we will analyze what leaders can do to overcome mental barriers, create awareness and engagement, and empower their people to work towards sustainability.

Marketing and Communication are central functions in order to manage market and customer relations successfully. In the framework of sustainability management, it is important to realize and understand the customer‘s attitudes and expectations as well as being able to communicate the sustainability efforts of the organization to the respective stakeholders. This module is designed to understand recent marketing methods and tools as ways to practice a more “sustainable“ CRM, Sales Management, Product and Service Marketing as well as Communication Policy of the organization. All topics will be illustrated by case studies or other practical examples.

This module provides a conceptual overview on different approaches and instruments to sustainable corporate reporting and management accounting. The basic goal is to understand and apply methods to measure qualitative, sustainability-related issues in order to integrate them in accounting and controlling frameworks. Topics covered include reporting practices, regulatory requirements including EU-Taxonomy as well as Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, reporting frameworks, reporting standards, ESG rating agencies, investment products, activist investing and NGOs. The course also provides guidance for synthesizing information from corporate sustainability disclosures into traditional financial and valuation analyses. The class format combines lectures, interactive discussions, case studies and presentations.

Innovation Management is an important function of an organization in order to come up with new products, services, processes or even business models. In the future, it will more than ever be vital for companies to transform these categories towards more sustainability. Hence, firms must offer sustainable products and services, must change their processes and come up with (more) sustainable business models. Within this module, the categories, preconditions, processes and success factors of sustainable innovations are explained and the use of tools and concepts to design and realize innovative ideas are practiced.

The circular economy is a systems solution framework that tackles global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss,waste and pollution. From the point of view of (industrial) firms, every element of the old “take-make-waste“ system has to be transformed on the basis of digitalization and creativity (more sustainable value creation networks). In thiscontext, new and digital concepts such as Industry 4.0, IoT, cloud computing and machine learning are discussed and integrated in a holistic solution concept.

At the end of the MBA “Sustainability Management“ program, a project work, realized and presented by groups of participants, will deepen the knowledge and will help to apply it in order to analyze, structure and solve practical sustainability management issues. In this module, one of two project work options can be chosen. In the “Sustainability Challenge“ category, challenges like the reduction of CO2 emissions, minimization and optimization of water usage and waste creation or establishing a recycling-based economy are the starting point, transferring this goal into a concrete management approach.

In the “Corporate Project“ category, a concrete company is considered, developing a solution concept for a sustainability-related task.

All solutions are worked out and presented in groups.

JOB DEVELOPMENT
Practical Project: Develop a well-founded solution concept for concrete challenges from your professional environment

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Business Plan: Develop a business model – from idea to implementation

ACADEMIC THESIS
Theory: In-depth academic research at the intersection of theory and practice