Coursera

Understanding the need for a sustainable business (Coursera)

Offered by The Open University,
Understanding the need for a sustainable business (Coursera)

This course will help you to discover the features of sustainable business and how you can adopt these for business success. You will gain a high-level understanding of the critical ‘big picture’ issues facing humanity today and learn how we can address them through innovation development and implementation. You’ll consider implications for businesses arising from UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You will assess existing business design and innovation approaches to problem solving in a sustainability context.

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Via text-based resources and task books, you’ll gain comprehensive understanding and benefit from in-depth reference points as you formulate your ideas and plans.
This course is part of the Sustainability for business success Specialization.

What you'll learn

  • Understand the mega-trends and drivers influencing the change in consumer preference and business landscapes towards sustainable impact outcomes.
  • Frame and scope new business challenges, strategically grounded in contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Syllabus

Welcome to the course
This week introduces the basics of the course structure and suggests ways to make the most of the course content. You will explore what sustainable business is and how it functions.

Why we need sustainable business?
This week explores why sustainable business is vital for a desirable future. You will examine why sustainable business is an effective way to contribute towards dealing with collective grand challenges and ‘wicked problems’. You will also see how sustainable business can have an impact at the overall ecosystem level, helping to leave the world a better place than we found it.

Understanding sustainable business goals and targets
This week, you will identify ways that sustainable business opportunities drive positive change. You will also learn how to implement sustainable business in practice, drawing on inspirational cases and practical guidance on engaging divergent stakeholders. At the same time, you will appreciate the key needs and problems across stakeholder ecosystems and ways that these allow you to frame business opportunity spaces.

Sustainable business design approaches
This week, you will examine how to engage different stakeholders along a common, sustainable vision and mission.

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