At a time of indisputable societal and environmental change, Stern MBA students specializing in Sustainable Business and Innovation will examine the unique role of the private sector and gain a broad understanding of how embedding sustainability into core business strategy benefits financial performance and management practices. To learn more about the Specialization and its course requirements, click here.

To assist MBA students as they design their schedules, CSB has assembled the following list of Sustainable Business and Innovation courses offered in the upcoming Spring 2025 semester.

BSPA-GB.2305: Sustainability for Competitive Advantage

Professor Whelan | MW 3:00 PM - 4:20 PM | In-Person

Professor Taylor | M 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

In this course, students will develop a effective leadership perspective through pursuit of the following learning objectives: 1) to become familiar with the key environmental and social issues affecting business today, 2) to understand the evolution of corporate response - from compliance to engagement to innovation, 3) to begin to develop some of the skills required for leading in this new social and political environment (e.g. multi-stakeholder management), 4) to explore the efficiencies and innovations being developed by corporate leaders in pursuit of sustainability, 5) to explore innovations in finance (true cost accounting, net positive value, social impact bonds), and 6) to become familiar with the latest consumer insight research on sustainability. In short, this course is multi-disciplinary, and seeks to integrate across the functions of the firm to arrive at an effective firm-wide leadership sensibility.

ACCT-GB.3153 Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles Industry

Professor Gode | T 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

This course analyzes renewable energy and electric vehicles industries from the perspective of someone who wants to start these businesses, manage them, or invest in them. It covers the following: (1) The business drivers for key renewable energy and electric vehicle technologies and their trends (2) Simplified financial models of renewable energy projects (3) Understanding and analyzing financial statements of renewable energy companies and electric vehicles companies.

BSPA-GB 2304 Social Entrepreneurship & Sustainable Development

Professor Asamoah | T 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person

Current economic principles, which underpin our trust in markets are not value neutral. Therefore, how we design “market solutions” to problems should be the focus of vigorous and open debate. Social entrepreneurship is a concept that has re-focused us on the meaning of the goods and social practices we value as citizens in a global society. The purpose of this course is to provide students with the essential conceptual frameworks and tools for creating successful social entrepreneurial ventures, initiatives, programs or partnerships that seek to tackle global poverty and collective action problems. Social Entrepreneurship, loosely defined as entrepreneurial activities with an embedded social purpose, is about using entrepreneurial skills to craft innovative responses to address social problems. It aims at social impact, but does not exclude economic wealth creation. Thus, it is not limited to the non-profit or social sectors but seeks to mobilize and align interests of diverse stakeholders in the social, public and private sectors by creating non-financial incentives for collective action. The course will cover a broad range of cutting-edge social enterprise and social entrepreneurship strategies from around the world. Students will interact with guest social entrepreneurs, policy makers, thought leaders and investors to ensure they gain a comprehensive understanding of this dynamic field, and challenge themselves as agents of social change working in development. 

BSPA-GB 2308 Driving Market Solutions for Clean Energy

Professor Gowrishankar & Berlin | R 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person

This course is designed to provide students with a rich understanding of the economy-wide energy transitions that are needed in the United States to help curb climate change, with an emphasis on how the private sector can drive such changes. As relevant background, the course will cover energy-related macroeconomic concepts and trends, and provide environmental and international context. It will draw on the instructor’s diverse experiences, readings and other media, classroom discussions, case studies, visiting speakers, and group projects, to explore and debate how such ambitious but necessary transformations may be brought about.

BSPA-GB.3318 Corporate Governance

Professor Brenner | W 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM | In-Person

Professor Brenner | T 4:45 PM - 7:45 PM | In-Person

Corporate Governance has evolved to be one of the more compelling and challenging subjects in business, law and society. Governance is a multi-faceted topic that has economic, ethical, legal, regulatory, and sociological dimensions. Its impact has increased with the ever-growing power and scope of modern business corporations and of institutional shareholders who own an increasing proportion of public companies’ equity securities. The imperfections of many companies’ corporate governance have been demonstrated by a distressingly long list of spectacular business and governance failures. These failures - accounting frauds, excessive executive compensation packages, value-destroying market strategies, bankruptcies, and still evolving aspects of the 2008-2009 financial crisis - have imposed substantial costs on shareholders, other stakeholders, and society at large.

BSPA-GB 2331 Law and Business and Human Rights

Professor Posner | M 6.00 PM - 9.00 PM | In-Person

Increasingly businesses are confronted with human rights challenges whether in managing global manufacturing supply chains dressing privacy issues in the Information technology industry security issues in the extractive industries or confronting child and forced labor in agriculture. Over 14 sessions this course will examine these and other issues divided into three segments The first segment will examine the origins and substantive content of international human rights standards. It will examine the implementation of these standards at a national and international level and the range of remedies when governments fail to comply with these standards.The second segment will explore the effects of globalization and the increasing imperative for global businesses to address human rights challenges in their core business operations. These issues become especially relevant in states with a weak rule of law and a lack of willingness or capacity to protect the rights of their own people. In addressing the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights we will apply a framework similar to that which we discussed in the first segment standard-setting implementation and the provision of appropriate remedies. the third segment we will take a case study approach examining how business and human rights issues manifest themselves in global manufacturing the extractive industries information and communication technology companies and in agriculture. We also will explore how the investment community is addressing these issues. Finally we will look ahead and anticipate where the field of business and human rights is headed and how corporate leaders and lawyers can help develop models of sustainability for businesses in the human rights realm.

BSPA-GB 3110 Work, Wisdom, and Happiness

Professor Haidt | T 9.00 AM - 11.50 AM | In-Person

Professor Dewji | M 7.00 PM - 9.00 PM | Online

For centuries, work was regarded as nothing but toil – a requirement for earning one's daily bread. But in recent decades, expectations about work have been transformed as has its very nature. While it still provides one’s daily bread, it is also regarded as a major opportunity for people to find purpose, meaning, and happiness in their lives. In this course, students study the latest research on what makes people happy at work, on how happiness at work improves the quality of work, on how people and organizations develop wisdom, and on what makes a career not just successful but meaningful. We will also discuss some of the impediments – both individual and organizational to doing meaningful and satisfying work. Students will develop their own visions of their ideal career, and of the ideal company they’d like to lead or work for.

FINC-GB 2360 Sustainable Finance: Innovation and Trends in Capital Markets

Professor Zazzara | R 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

The goal of the course is to analyze the interplay of Sustainability and Finance and the related new risks and opportunities. In fact, the intersection of ESG and Financial issues generates new risks over longer risk horizons, which should be factored into company valuation frameworks from fundamental analysis. However, understanding, measuring, and pricing these new sources of risk, and also assessing the related opportunities, presents challenges due to the wide breadth of ESG-related issues coupled with data limitations.

MGMT-GB 2100 Inclusive Leadership

Professors Weisberg & Rashid | MW 3:00 PM - 4:20 PM | In-Person

Professors Weisberg & Rashid | M 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

In today’s rapidly changing global economy, companies with the best talent are at a competitive advantage and inclusive leadership skills are increasingly at a premium. This course will provide students with the skills and strategies to be inclusive leaders: to recognize their own agency to interrupt implicit bias, develop and support allies of diverse backgrounds, address microaggressions, and to leverage the talent on their teams to achieve business outcomes. Students will be able to utilize the lessons of the course in their own career decisions as well as when managing, being managed by, or collaborating with others. The course is highly interactive so that students can learn from each other as well as guest speakers such as the former CEO of Jamba Juice and author of Anti-Racist Leadership, the head of multicultural marketing at Johnson & Johnson, the Chief Impact Officer at Advantage Capital, and the Vice-Chairman of global capital markets at Morgan Stanley. Any student who wants to deliver better results through better people's decisions should take this class.

MGMT-GB.3358 Leading Innovation to Address Climate Change

Professor Carty | M 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM | In-Person

The objective of the class is to educate students on how they can lead action to combat climate change and achieve climate adaptation through innovation and accelerating diffusion of innovations. This includes exposing them to a diverse set of technologies that are available for action, helping them to understand the current state of technology diffusion, and providing a playbook on how to: a) assess the technology, b) assess the market potential, and c) create a plan to accelerate technology diffusion In addition, the class will enrich students’ understanding of the diverse stakeholders involved, the role of government/public policy (especially as pertains to regulation and business model creation), the opportunity for social impact, and the ethical considerations in technology adoption. The course is interdisciplinary melding concepts from leadership/leading innovation, sustainability, business strategy, technology diffusion, technology assessment, technology development, marketing, public policy, societal impact, and ethics. This class has been developed primarily for practitioners who will lead action that can achieve impact in the next 10-20 years. The primary audience is students who will become: a) product managers, product management leaders, and product development leaders general managers b) startup founders/CEOs, presidents, and other senior leaders c) public policy leaders in climate (government, non-profits, industry organizations, etc.) d) product management/development or general managers for decarbonization efforts within corporations that are not in a sustainability industry. Additional audiences for this class include students who intend to enter careers as investors or consultants related to climate. For example, early-stage tech investors, climate funds, and ESG investors seeking to understand where to place bets on climate-related tech domains and specific companies as well as evaluating the ESG performance of non-climate firms.