The increasing focus on sustainability in the industrial and business sector requires modern companies to act. The aim of the ESMIA lecture is to give a sound introduction to the highly relevant field of environmental and sustainability management of companies. The lecture not only takes a deep dive into how a sustainability strategy can actually be developed within a company, but also considers this issue from the different stakeholder perspectives such as customers, NGOs and politics. In this context, ESMIA offers a broad overview of different management and analysis tools and methods, that companies can apply. The lecture follows the overarching steps of how a strategy is developed, how to measure and manage the progress and how these sustainability measures are implemented in actual processes and what impact they have.
Students further learn about methods to identify the relevant environmental aspects within the life cycle of a product and how to derive appropriate targets for the respective company and its sustainability policy. After completing the module, students can systematically analyse companies for environmental risks and formulate appropriate environmental and sustainability strategies. The practical application of this knowledge to a case study will be performed in a teamproject that accompanies the lecture.
A key element of the ESMIA lecture is an (optional) extensive 3-day-excursion. When visiting the selected highly innovatory companies covering the sectors energy, chemistry, mobility and metal production, students get a tangible example on what modern environmental and sustainability management looks like in practice. The chosen companies perfectly represent state of the art sustainability management in industry. Further information regarding this will be provided within the lecture.
Basic concepts of sustainability and environmental science are presented in order to build a global understanding of the main challenges related to sustainable development. Relevant topics such as climate change and population growth on a global scale or biodiversity, air and water quality on a local level will be discussed. Further, an overview of the framework of environmental laws will be given, with a focus on environmental management. Based on the presented topics, requirements for companies to implement sustainability strategies are derived. The two central pillars are governance and leadership, i.e. existing regulations, laws and standards such as ISO 26000 (guidelines for social responsibility) or ISO 14001 (environmental management system standard) as well as possible unique selling propositions for standing out among competitors. In order to systematically examine these requirements for a specific company, various methods are presented with materiality analysis as the central instrument. This approach results in concrete indicators and measures for product policy, environmental communication, corporate social responsibility or external certification. In the accompanying team project, case studies are analysed in order to link the presented theory with actual corporate practice.
Docent: Hon.-Prof. Dr. Stephan Krinke
Semester: summer semester
Lecture start: 04.04.2024, CIM Seminarraum, Langer Kamp 19b, 38106 Braunschweig
Final presentation of teamproject: tbd
Registration: Please register for the exam using the TUconnect portal
Exam date: tbd
Exam type: Written exam, exam +
Credit points: 5
The lecture will be held in English.