ClassInfo

Sustainability is increasingly being defined broadly to include the environmental, social and governance (ESG) actions and effects of organizations. ESG concepts integrate environmental sustainability with diversity, equity and inclusion. Individuals working within organizations or seeking to join those organizations have expressed desires to affect the actions of an organization. This course aims to give students hands-on experience with a project investigating, designing, advocating for and implementing an ESG improvement in an existing or new organization. We imagine students in this course as future intrapreneurs (an employee of an organization who create new opportunities or products in the style of an entrepreneur) transforming practices in existing organizations or as entrepreneurs seeking to create new sustainable organizations, or both. Steve Kelley has worked on sustainability policy in the Minnesota legislature, as Minnesota's Commissioner of Commerce and as a senior fellow at the Humphrey School. He has taught or co-taught courses in social entrepreneurship and policy problem-solving. Laura Bishop is a consultant who served as Commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and as the Chief Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Officer for Best Buy.

1. Enable students to develop leadership competencies in systems thinking, future anticipation, normative values and principles, strategy and interpersonal collaboration.

2. Enable students to apply problem-solving practices applicable to wicked problems including a) questioning, listening and empathizing, b) applying solution design frameworks and concepts such as empathy maps, personas, and sustainable value propositions, and c)
prototyping, testing and iteration.

3. Enable students to apply ESG concepts and theory such as stakeholder capitalism, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, social, economic and ecological boundaries or limits, and ESG reporting and measurement frameworks.