IPSS - IESE Platform for Strategy and Sustainability
Enabling good strategic decisions around global sustainability issues

Introduction

The concept of “sustainability” has been at the core of strategy research and managerial frameworks. How to create a sustainable competitive advantage is the holy grail of managerial decision-making. For global society, the term "sustainability" refers to phenomena such as climate change, water stress, depletion of natural resources, pollution, shifting demographics, poverty or inequality.

Where these sustainability issues are associated with economic activity, their potential impact on society and the environment increasingly challenges corporate legitimacy, scope and scale of operations and traditional views of strategic success factors. As a senior Porsche Manager faced with the threat of pending EU environmental legislation said in 2007: “If this law is implemented we are dead”. On the other hand, companies like GE are betting their future on providing solutions for global sustainability issues. Sustainability as opportunity or threat is the main theme of this course.

Course Objectives
The main objectives of the course are:

• understand the managerial implications of looking at “sustainability” from various perspectives.

• to develop skills in identifying important touch-points between global sustainability phenomena and corporate agendas.

• to reflect on managerial decision making in light of the evolving legal frameworks and changing norms that influence the dynamics of markets, customer choices and corporate survival.