探花精选

• Professor Richard Kwiatkowski

Success in management, particularly at senior levels in organisations, depends on understanding organisations, the people in them and the relationship between the internal and external environments within which they exist; and in ensuring that they work effectively. In the context of sustainability, this is even more critical since the multiplicity of actors and stakeholders involved is especially acute, and the potential long-term benefits on society and the planet of effective leadership are so significant.

Organisations are run by and for people, and the success or failure of an organisation depends on the people in that organisation. This module aims to enhance the awareness of self and others in organisations, and in the other organisations then interact with, using a variety of models and modes, such that baseline awareness allows action, and therefore leading for sustainability can be consciously and deliberately be enhanced.

It is rarely an absence of planning that causes organisational difficulties; it is often the failure of management in understanding and managing complex personal, interpersonal and organisational systems that can lead to significant problems.

Similarly, an acute and critical understanding of these dynamics can lead to profound and enduring success and benefit for the individual, the team, the organisation and wider society.

In this module students will be introduced to various aspects of people and organisations. This module combines models, theories and ideas from organisational behaviour, psychology, management and sociology, in order to provide students with a practical understanding in recognising, understanding and utilising what has been termed the "human factor" in organisations; including ways of conceptualising organisations and how people behave within them. We shall begin to consider the impact of the external human environment; and begin to address notions of organisational change and the various ways in which leading can take place.

This module will focus on application and will allow students to reflect on and apply theories and techniques in their own real-world context as sustainability professionals, utilising a structured portfolio approach in order to reflect on and ultimately enhance their own Leadership behaviours.

It may also be that students will wish to undertake a work-based project or thesis in this area; several of the faculty involved will be pleased to discuss this with you.

• Individual understanding and awareness in the organisation (covering topics such as learning, personality, perception, motivation, psychological capital and emotional intelligence).
• Groups and teams in the organisation (including team dynamics, synergy).
• Management and Leadership processes (including organisational change, leadership and leading, structures, organisational politics, influence, diversity and inclusion).
• Leadership traits, styles and competencies required to lead effectively in the sustainability context.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Differentiate ways of conceptualising people in organisations, for example using culture, ethics, well-being, diversity, politics, management, and change frameworks 
2. Assess and evaluate the importance of relationships at work, group dynamics, effective teams and especially leadership in achieving effectiveness 
3. Critically engage with relevant models, theories, and ideas in order to enhance personal capability linked to their personal and professional development agenda. 
4. Appraise realistically how you may have increased your personal influence and your capability to lead for sustainability, and project that plan into the future

• Professor Paul Burgess

Human population growth and increased resource use per capita requires improved management of our global ecosystem. Approaches such as the Sustainable Development Goals, Natural Capital, Ecosystem Services, and Planetary Boundaries provide frameworks for businesses and wider society to resolve the synergies and trade-offs between major economic, environmental, and social challenges. The Circular Economy approach refers to the development of restorative industrial systems that are grounded on the lessons of non-linear, feedback-rich ecosystems.

A third approach is to explore the nexus between renewable energy, food, and other ecosystem services using per capita energy and food consumption. In this module, you will examine and critique the above frameworks and their application to resolve real-world problems and create commercial opportunities.

The knowledge, skills and behaviours you will gain during this programme are as follows:

• The global social, environmental, economic and ethical pressures affecting business, government and society
• The social, economic, philosophical, political, technological and regulatory environment and potential levers to drive change
• How to build sustainable communities for the future
• The macro environmental factors which influence the sector such as climate change, water resource and pollution and their impact on business practice
• How to communicate sustainability messages effectively internally at all levels of the organisation or externally to key stakeholders
• Devise and implement achievable and viable sustainability strategies for the organisation
• Problem solving: take a holistic approach to solving complex problems
• Integrity and respect: listens to others and seeks to build understanding; embraces the diversity of colleagues and makes complex issues easy for others to understand

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Critique terms such as 鈥渟ustainability鈥�, 鈥渆cosystem services鈥�, 鈥渂iodiversity鈥�, 鈥渉uman well-being鈥�, 鈥渃ircular economy鈥�, 鈥減er capita energy use鈥�, 鈥渘atural capital鈥� and 鈥渄oughnut economics鈥�.
2. Evaluate how natural capital and ecosystem service approaches can guide businesses and society to make decisions regarding the use of ecological resources, with a focus on biodiversity, greenhouse gases, and water use.
3. Recognise and appraise how we can enhance the stability, resistance and resilience of human and natural systems.
4. Critically evaluate how the 鈥渃ircular economy鈥� provides commercial opportunities.
5. Apply a per capita approach to explore the synergies between food, feed, wood, and renewable energy production to guide decision making and identify opportunities in the context of a case-study.

• Dr Namita Shete

The urgency of taking action on climate change, biodiversity loss, hyper-social inequality and the other myriad social and environmental challenges we face today. We know that only the businesses that respond decisively to them will survive. This module will equip business leaders with the awareness and capabilities they require to steer their businesses towards contributing to positive change whilst reducing costs, managing risk, increasing trust and driving long term sustainable growth.

• Online pre-work
• Assessment of the current state of sustainability in students’ own organization
• Videos introducing key concepts and theories
• Reflection and quizzes
• Sustainability challenges and opportunities
• Business’s role in addressing these
• Drivers for action / stakeholder pressures
• Business purpose
• Strategy and planning
• Target and metrics
• Exploring sustainable futures
• Sustainable innovation (& circular innovation)
• Collaboration and partnerships
• Leadership
• Looking to the future

1. Identify global social environmental and economic issues and relate how these present both challenges and opportunities to business
2. Analyse business responses to these challenges and opportunities and assess the capabilities they require to respond effectively
3. Classify the stakeholder groups businesses can work with to develop and implement their sustainability strategies and compare collaboration approaches
4. Consider the role of personal leadership in an organization鈥檚 values, strategic direction and ability to execute its sustainability strategy
5. Critically assess the content and reporting of a businesses鈥� sustainability strategy; recommend improvements and identify barriers to change and approaches to overcoming these.

• Dr Georgios Pexas

Environmental impact assessment and life cycle analysis are important tools for evaluating the sustainability of complex renewable energy technologies and industrial processes or products. The tools and concepts taught in this module will enable students to assess the sustainability of a case study from an environmental standpoint. Analysis of relevant case studies is used to demonstrate the assessment process, including how to account for uncertainty and sensitivity analysis.

• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Indicator selection and analysis
• Life cycle analysis and carbon footprinting
• Social impact assessment
• The use of appropriate software for lifecycle analysis

1. Critically assess the emissions and waste production throughout the lifecycle of a technology or process
2. Design a framework to ensure compliance of a process, product or service to support the transition to Net Zero that is compliant with regulatory and voluntary requirements
3. Critically evaluate different environmental and social appraisal metrics
4. Design and implement a strategy to assess the environmental sustainability of a process or technology, and evaluate the associated uncertainties

• Professor Andrew Angus

Senior managers are often presented with mutually exclusive internal investment opportunities. Therefore, to gain investment in sustainability initiatives, function managers must often demonstrate that their initiative is the best use of scarce investment funds. This 鈥榖usiness case鈥� can be made through an appraisal of the likely costs and benefits of an initiative over its economic lifetime.

This module aims to equip you with an understanding of the rationale and tools of economic appraisal to enable the construction of effective business cases. This will be achieved through a critical evaluation of economic appraisal metrics, an appropriate discount rate and the relevance of economics in the context of sustainability.

• The concepts of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and equity.
• Principles and practice of economic appraisal.
• The principles of sensitivity analysis.
• Case study application of cost-benefit analysis for a renewable energy project in a spreadsheet environment
• Market failures and the role of cost benefit analysis.
• Assumptions of the dominant economic paradigm and alternative paradigms

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Interpret economic efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and equity, and appraise their role in decision making.
2. Critically evaluate different economic appraisal metrics such as benefit: cost ratio, net present value, internal rate of return and cost-effectiveness ratio.
3. Critically evaluate the choice of an appropriate discount rate.
4. Apply an economic appraisal in a spreadsheet environment.
5. Debate the relevance of economics in the context of sustainability.

• Dr Gill Drew

The purpose of this module is to provide you with skills, insights, and the experience to implement and maintain an Environmental Management System (EMS) and associated audit programmes. This requires an understanding of Environmental Management Systems and associated Codes of Practice, in particular the ISO 14001 family of Standards. This module examines the methods that organisations can use to strategically govern an EMS, primarily driven by the goals and targets that can be developed as part of a monitoring and measurement programme (e.g. associated to global indices such as the UN Sustainable Development Programme, or the Global reporting Initiative).

The module also provides practical insights into the development and management of audit programmes and audit activities that will provide meaningful feedback for governance teams within an organisation. The exercises and case studies within the module enable you to draw on methods and topics learnt in previous modules.

• The design of environmental management systems and how to embed them within the business to drive standards in line with ISO 14001 and customer codes of practice
• Methods to analyse sustainability performance data and develop the appropriate business response in line with ISO14001, legislative and customer codes of practice
• How to manage audit programmes (the principles and practices of internal and external audits) as specified in ISO 19001 and ISO 17021
• How to design, implement and evaluate internal and external environmental audit schedules in line with ISO 19001 and ISO 17021 to drive improvements

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Design an effective environmental management system that meets the requirements of ISO 14001, and associated Codes of Practice, including ISO 17021.
2. Organise the development of an audit programme, and the requirements of individual audit activities and processes in line with ISO 19011.
3. Formulate objectives and performance monitoring processes based on sustainability performance data, legislation and codes of practice.
4. Assess the effectiveness of an audit programme to fully investigates appropriate environmental aspects including energy, water, waste, materials, packaging in line with recognised standards.
5. Assess the need for integrity and respect, and implement policies and behaviours aligned to the auditing codes of practice laid down in ISO 19011.

Over the past decade environmental regulators and the public have aimed to improve the quality of environmental management by basing choices on reliable data and assessment. However, risk analysts often develop their competencies from their specific profession, for which the requirements can vary across industries, government bodies and geographical borders. This module aims to provide a transdisciplinary understanding of the theory and practice of effective management of all phases of environmental hazards.

The module covers key topics including conceptual model development, probability, risk characterisation, and informatics. In doing so, this module aims to provide you with the capability and capacity to assess the wide range of increasingly complex risks and hazards facing organisations, policymakers and regulators.

• Current legislation for environment (water, air and land) protection and pollution control
• Qualitative, quantitative and probabilistic risk analysis tools
• Systemic risks
• Problem definition and conceptual models
• Spatial analysis and informatics
• Risk screening and prioritisation
• Assembling strength and weight of evidence
• Evaluating and communicating sources of uncertainty

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Identify, analyse and evaluate the wide range of environmental risks within the UK (e.g. animal disease, chemical spills, high winds, flooding) and be able to identify and apply appropriate methods of assessing these risks;
2. Critically evaluate the decision process underpinning the management of such risks and provide justification for the prioritisation and application of different risk management actions;
3. Examine and interpret the relationship between risk, social, economic, political and technological trends and be able to provide appropriate suggestions for communication of assessment and management of environmental risks related to the influencing factors;
4. Analyse and explain the possible consequences in a given situation where environmental risks will occur and their likely impacts on a population and the potential secondary impacts; and
5. Review, critique and suggest improvements for other risk assessment and management methodologies within the given scenarios.

• Dr Theresa Mercer

The aim of this module to develop an appreciation of the importance of individual and group attitudes towards the perception of risk and how this may influence views, conduct and actions in the face of a range of risks including the development of communication methods to disseminate information about risk(s) to a range of audiences and how to determine its effectiveness.

• What is meant by the perception of risk and how it varies with context
• Attitudes towards risk based on psychological, cultural and other dimensions
• The role of various societal groups (the media, NGOs, etc) in risk issues
• Models of the amplification and attenuation of risk
• Understanding the “fright factors” in risk perception and the development of trust
• Horizon scanning and scenario building tools for communicating future risk to individuals and organisations
• Communicating risk messages

1. Identify and analyse the “non-science” influences in risk assessment and management using sociological and psychological theories relating to risk perception, attitudes and communication
2. Identify and evaluate drivers that may influence individual or group perceptions and attitudes towards risk in specific scenarios
3. Participate in the discourse on the roles in society of different stakeholders (e.g. the media, NGOs, academics, government) with respect to risk assessment issues and to be able to describe to others why they have the beliefs they hold
4. Develop and demonstrate skills in listening to concerns from different individuals/groups towards risks and the ability to enter into dialogue with such groups
5. Develop effective means of communication to suit specific or general situations and how to demonstrate its effectiveness, and critique methods based on theories and evidence.

• Dr Alice Johnston

While technological change is seen as the root cause of many environmental problems, it is simultaneously viewed as the means of solving such problems. This module explores technological change as part of positive sum strategies put forward by ecological modernisers. Theories of technological change such as evolutionary, path dependent and long wave are reviewed and used to formulate technology policy to achieve environmental net gain or transition to a low carbon economy. These are then set in practical contexts such as innovation in manufacturing, ecological restoration, or low-carbon living.

• Ecological Modernisation, definition, key aspects, objectives and methodology · Development of associated policy frameworks, market failure, the role of governments, policies and mechanisms to address this
• Innovation: Technology Development, transfer, adoption and diffusion · Innovation and sustainability, utility which process offers in this context, drivers and barriers · Integrated Sustainable Technology Assessment in context · Clusters, technology road-maps and the development of sustainable technologies

1. Illustrate and debate the innovations in use and in development designed to tackle climate change, net zero and biodiversity loss
2. Critically summarise the key trade-offs that occur in achieving technological change and economic development alongside environmental protection.
3. Discuss and present a summary of examples of technological change developed to achieve transition, e.g., to a low carbon economy.
4. Evaluate technology options and policy initiatives to stimulate transitions, e.g. to a low carbon economy using examples.
5. Concisely justify a proposal for an environmentally beneficial initiative.

• Dr Hendrik Reefke

This module will introduce you to the main concepts and principles that underpin Logistics and Supply Chain Management, particularly in the context of sustainability and managing global supply chains. The module presents the fundamental principles of contemporary logistics and supply chain management within a business context. It explores the ways in which good practice in these fields can contribute to achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Additionally, the concepts of circularity and how they apply to supply chains are explored, since this represents a critical approach for organisations to future-proof their supply chains.

You will experience the challenges presented by the transition from linear to circular supply chains, and devise strategies to overcome them through a simulation of their supply chains to future proof their business.

• The central aim of this module is to develop an introductory understanding of:
• Supply chains and competitive advantage including the principles of logistics and supply chain management and the potential impact on a focal firm’s competitive position and its organisational vision and performance
• Different types of supplier relationships from arm’s length transactional to Joint Ventures, explores the nature of collaboration between supply chain members and supplier networks
• Introduction to supply chain sustainability concepts and examines some of the global trends impacting on the sustainability of supply chains and discusses some of the strategies to improve the performance of SCs against the triple bottom line
• The fundamental principles/concepts of supply chain circularity
• How to manage a business that is transitioning to a more circular business model in the simulation
• Learn about several of the key circularity metrics that are often used by businesses interested in measuring their circularity
• Reflect on the learnings and the application of the concepts to other businesses
  

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Analyse the basic principles underlying supply chain management, the potential impact on sustainable competitive advantage and distinguish evolving supply relationships from arm鈥檚 length to Joint Ventures.
2. Evaluate approaches to supply chain integration, both internally and externally, and understand possible effects on firm performance.
3. Evaluate the challenges around implementing a circular supply chain.
4. Construct a business strategy that supports the achievement of a more circular supply chain.
5. Evaluate the concepts of sustainable supply chains and circular supply chains and how they could be applied across different types of supply chains/sectors.

This module aims to introduce you to strategies and tools that enable Circular Business Model development to take place. You will gain experience of the real-life scenarios in which a holistic approach to designing/innovating for improved sustainability is required. Delivering environmental-social and economic improvements in products and businesses requires organisations to take a longer-term integrated view of their product and service policies.

To support this, an appreciation of a range of tools and techniques, used to guide designers/managers responding to the requirements for more circularity of products, services, and organisational processes, will be developed.

The knowledge, skills and behaviours you will gain during this programme are as follows:

• How to identify probable sustainability issues at each stage of the end to end supply/value chain and how they can be resolved or mitigated
• How to identify sustainability key stakeholders and their roles
• Sustainable technologies relevant to own sector
• Key principles which identify the "Ethical Business" and how to put it into practice
• Conceptualise and resolve ethical, corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues within the business
• Devise and implement achievable and viable sustainability strategies for the organisation
• Critically evaluate sustainability issues and trends which may impact on business performance
• Identify, influence and manage key stakeholders across different business functions
• Problem solving: take a holistic approach to solving complex problems
• Responsiveness to change: flexible to changing demands; resilient under pressure
• Innovation: demonstrates curiosity to foster new ways of thinking and working; seeks out opportunities to drive forward change and improvements for the business

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Explain and construct the business strategy and design trade-offs that address the sustainable development of new products or services;
2. Assess and justify concepts of design responsibility and the ethical agenda of designing for society;
3. Critically evaluate the link between design activity and organisational strategy as an approach to addressing environmentally and socially responsible design;
4. Interpret case studies from across design disciplines that have adopted a holistic approach to the design of more innovative and sustainable solutions;
5. Develop and defend a business case by utilising Circular Business Model Innovation (novel practices that challenges industry specific standards)

Strategic foresight research refers to a range of methods that can be used to identify, analyse and communicate insights about the future. Standard methods include horizon scanning, trend research, and scenario planning. Outputs include emerging issues, trends, visions, scenarios, and wild cards. The methods employed and insights produced are used by both private and public sector organisations to inform a wide range of policy, risk, strategy and innovation processes. Foresight research is a truly inter-disciplinary ‘science’, covering and combining developments in society, technology, economy, ecology, politics, legislation and values.

Crucially, foresight research is as much about analysing the past and present, as it is about looking to the future. Once we understand how a system has developed and works today, we can explore how it may evolve and what it may look like in the future. Strategic foresight techniques consider a wide range of possible, plausible futures so that planning can be put in place to adapt to and mitigate against various conditions. It is designed to add resilience, adaptability and flexibility to organisations in an increasingly complex and fast changing world.

This module will explore how:

• Horizon scanning can act as a method of gathering new insights that may point us towards affirming or discrediting existing trends and developments, as well as identifying new and emerging trends and developments that are on the margins of our current thinking, but will impact on the future.
• Other foresight methodologies (e.g. scenario planning, visioning, back-casting) can be used to help us to use the trends identified from horizon scanning to identify how the future might develop

In this module, you will adopt a bespoke three-step foresight process to interpret change in the external organisational environment and use the insights generated to anticipate plausible futures and stress-test strategies that support building organisational resilience.

The foresight process will support you in building:

Robust organisational intelligence through systematic horizon scanning and insight generation

Resilience through comprehensive exploration and interpretation of the future to maintain flexibility (ability to adapt) against impending risks and to cease opportunities

Step 1: Build organisational intelligence

A 360o horizon scan of the external environment, both operational (e.g. market and consumer trends, competition) and contextual (e.g. regulatory constraints and opportunities, technological and social change), to systemically analyse those trends and patterns within the industry/sector and beyond that point to persistent trends, discontinuities or sharp disruptions that may challenge the future direction and ambition of your organisation.

Step 2: Develop a set of alternative plausible future scenarios

Build a set of plausible scenarios that explore alternative development pathways for your organisation in the future. The scenarios will reflect both positive and negative factors influencing the development of the organisation over the short to long-term, considering the contrasting role that various external driver of change (e.g. socio-demographic, technological, economic and policy change) will play. The scenarios should also consider discontinuities or sharp disruptive events (e.g. fuel crisis, political conflict or war) that may challenge the organisation’s continuity and its resilience, requiring an analysis of risks, opportunities and trade-offs over the long-term.

Step 3: Create a vision and strategic roadmap for achieving a desirable future (scenario)

Develop a vision and strategic roadmap for achieving the utopian scenario (i.e. most desirable future), defining the pathway and options for achieving the ambitions of your organisation. Apply the scenarios to stress-test the organisation’s future vision / strategy against potential disruption and to better prepare for other impending risks (e.g. financial and regulatory constraints) but also ceasing the opportunities that may arise.

• Assess why organisations engage in strategic foresight research and what strategic foresight aims to achieve - and what it cannot do
• Evaluate the utility and application of different strategic foresight research methodologies
• Examine the role of strategic foresight research evidence in a broad organisational and environmental contexts
• Identify and apply the tools of strategic foresight research in a broad organisational and environmental context; and
• Apply strategic foresight research methods to support a convincing case for action within the organisation and use foresight research evidence to effectively plan for the long-term resilience of the organisation

• Dr Orsolya Ihasz

The aim of this module is to familiarise students with the concepts of social enterprise and intrapreneurism, and enable them to compare and contrast these phenomena with “non-traditional” entrepreneurship.  Both business models overlap extensively with what is regarded as traditional entrepreneurship, but have distinctively different features: while being profit-or surplus-making, their aims typically embrace social outcomes and purposes, and their distribution or sharing of value created is frequently closely linked to these declared values.

Students will be introduced to the history and evolution of non-mainstream modes of entrepreneurship and will develop their understanding of how social entrepreneurs/social intrapreneurs and intrapreneurs create and operate enterprises/intrapreneurial activities in different environments.  They will see how such enterprises fit within the spectrum of profit and not for profit entities, and how these are regarded by policy-makers and other stakeholders.

Students will emerge with a clearer idea of whether they would like to make a career in this business environment or, indeed, aspire to found their own social enterprise or pursue a corporate intrapreneurial initiative.

• What social enterprise is: the history and evolution of social enterprise/entrepreneurship
• How social entrepreneurs compare with “mainstream” entrepreneurs
• Legal, commercial and financial structures of social enterprises
• Enabling environment for social intrapreneurism
• Compare and contrast: social vs non-social intrapreneurism
• Measuring the impact of social enterprise and intrapraneurism of all types
• Social enterprise and social intrapreneurism: how they are viewed by policy-makers and other key stakeholders
• Social enterprise, sustainable business and sustainable value creation.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Describe, analyse and categorise the drivers and motives of social entrepreneurs/social intrapreneurs and intrapeneurs.
2. Differentiate and delineate the salient features which distinguish these modes of entrepreneurial behaviour from other 鈥渕ainstream鈥� forms.
3. Define the factors, both environmental and intrinsic, which promote or hinder the development of both a free-standing social enterprise and social intrapreneurism within the corporation.
4. Apply the measures of impact used to define the effectiveness of social enterprises.
5. Explain and appraise the agenda of policy-makers regarding the role, purpose and economic value of social entrepreneurship.

• Professor David Grayson

Organisations are coming under increasing pressure from various stakeholders to manage their positive and negative impacts with clear responsibility and strategic intent.  Responsible and sustainable organisations are re-engaging at the level of purpose and re-thinking their role in wider society and for human betterment.

This module reminds students of the major sustainability challenges facing organisations and explores how the most progressive ones are responding in-terms of leadership and strategy, mind-set, structure, integrating sustainability into different management functions, stakeholder collaborations, environmental and social impacts and managing change.  It will engage students in gaining a better understanding of how organisational action can be best configured to promote a responsible and sustainable mission. In doing so, it will demand students to reflect on the long-standing debates concerning the political economy and ethical management practices.

The module is brought to life through its assessment in which students are invited to consider an organisation’s live sustainability challenge – the case company. The case company challenge will inspire discussion and become the foundation for the students’ problem-solving activity in order that they produce a design specification for their proposed solution and present it back to the case company.

This module combines developing a broad understanding of the wider context of organisational sustainability and how organisations are responding with the practical aspects of problem-solving around sustainability challenges. In particular, the module will focus on:

Organisational Ethics, Purpose and Governance for Sustainability

This part explores the Ethics, Purpose and Governance of organisations to understand the moral and business case arguments for sustainability. Sustainability calls for ethical and authentic leadership from senior executives, and this will be a feature of this teaching element.

Structure and Process

This element explores the different structural arrangements organisations put into place for managing sustainability. The various roles and responsibilities constituted to mobilise these structures will be discussed. In addition, the integrative capacity of the structures will also be considered. To embed the new structures key business processes and their adaptation for the successful pursuit of corporate responsibility and sustainability will also be considered (e.g. procurement, marketing, H&S processes).

Sustainability Through the Value Chain

This part focuses on external dimensions of the sustainable organisation, specifically on sustainable supply and value chains, partnerships, and stakeholder engagement. We will explore and how supply and value chains might adapt to accommodate greater levels of responsibility and more sustainable goals and the important role of collaborative approaches to addressing corporate responsibility and sustainability challenges.

Culture for Sustainability

This part explores how to initiate the nature and size of change necessary to create sustainable organisations and endeavour to develop a ‘new normal’ set of conditions.  This amounts to a cultural change process that generates a momentum for positive organisational level change to embed sustainability.  Successful organisational level cultural change creates further momentum for adaptations within the supply chain and wider industrial (ecology) system.  Particular emphasis is paid to how the organisation can begin to engage managers and employees to create momentum for positive organisational level change.

Problem-Solving for Sustainability

This element complements the theoretical aspect of the module and introduces a problem-solving process that the students will apply to the sustainability challenge presented by the invited company. It will allow students to engage with the intricacies of the problem presented in context and breakdown the task into manageable components.  The outcomes of this process will lead to the design and formulation of potential solution/options for the organisation. Each option will discuss the implications for implementation and include clear deliberations regarding the development of leadership and management skills.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Critically evaluate key theories and dominant practices associated with organisation structures and management (function) processes for corporate sustainability.
2. Contrast and defend the range of collaborative opportunities available to pursue corporate sustainability.
3. Develop and propose the central features of a cultural change process for embedding sustainability.
4. Appraise the organisational context of the sustainability challenge and identify and engage with an appropriate range of stakeholders, change agents and sustainability champions.
5. Working in teams, design, review and critically discuss different options available to organisations in response to sustainability issues.

The work-based thesis will be delivered through collaboration with the student’s employer (or selected third party organisation, if not employed). The project will enable students to demonstrate application of sustainability principles to a solve a business challenge and evidence, through reflective practice, the applicability of the learning to an employer (or selected third party organisation, if not employed).

Students who successfully complete the work-based thesis will progress through to their award (MSc Sustainability).

The subject matter range will be dependent upon the specific nature of each project, but may include:

• developing a sustainability plan to increase business efficiency by reducing waste or pollution
• developing an integrated environmental management system
• promoting and implementing a continuous quality improvement system
• creating/leading a sustainability vision and promoting staff commitment to best practice

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Appraise a research question, aims and objectives, based on a sustainability challenge faced by the employer (or selected third party organisation)
2. Assess methodologies appropriate to the task (e.g. case study), and plan and deliver a work programme with reference to professional project management processes (e.g. time management, risk management, contingency planning, resource allocation, health and safety, ethics)
3. Assess and critically review the literature and evaluate the findings to draw justifiable conclusions, demonstrating self-directed learning and originality of thought.
4. Analyse, synthesize, and critically evaluate the research findings and demonstrate how applicable the findings are to the employer (or selected third party organisation)
5. Generate recommendations based on research findings and communicate via a written report and defend the project outputs in a presentation suitable for both professional and academic audiences.