Managing Sustainable Business (MSB) 2011
Intended overarching programme aim– The aim for the MSB elective is to give students the
practical tools to manage business sustainability (Economically, Socially and Environmentally)
Through following a 7 step approach to Managing Sustainable Business, this practical, ‘how-to’
course, aims to equip students, interested in promoting responsible business, with the tools and
techniques needed to embed sustainability into business purpose, strategy and practice. These
include identifying and assessing the triggers for taking a more socially responsible approach to
business, scoping a company’s most material environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues
and how to make a business case for corporate responsibility. The course will address leadership
issues, such as Board level commitment and over-sight. Also, company-wide adherence to
organisational codes of responsible business behaviour, that are needed to make the business and
its associated value chain sustainable. The programme will also cover issues concerned with
integrating and gathering resources, identifying and engaging with stakeholders and measuring
performance and reporting outcomes.
The 7 step approach to Managing Sustainable Business :
Step 1. Identifying the triggers
Step 2. Scoping what matters
Step 3. Making the business case
Step 4. Committing to Action
Step 5. Integration in to daily business
Step 6. Engaging stakeholders
Step 7. Measuring and reporting
The underpinning philosophy of this course is that ‘Sustainable Business’ is about creating and
innovating new business strategies and activities to enhance business performance and bring new
opportunities, whilst at the same time, accelerating positive social change, and protecting and
preserving environmental integrity. Doing business sustainably should not be seen as an added
cost, burden, obligation or duty. It should rather be seen as an opportunity for increased motivation
of staff, market growth, product and service differentiation and creation of new business
opportunities. Effective sustainable business cannot rely on philanthropy or a mission to “do good;”
it must provide incentives for everyone in the value chain.
The ultimate goal is Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility (CS&R). We define Corporate
Sustainability & Responsibility or the Sustainable Enterprise as:
‘a business approach that creates long-term value to society at large, as well as to
shareholders, by embracing the opportunities and managing the risks associated with
economic, environmental and social developments; and builds this into corporate purpose
and strategy with transparency and accountability to stakeholders’.
Learning Objectives:
On completing this course students will be able to:
 Understand the relationship between responsible day –to- day management of a
sustainable business and the sustainability of the ecological environment and society.
 Know how to assess the maturity of a business (whether a prospective employer, supplier
or customer) in terms of its commitment to sustainability and business responsibility.
 Understand the basic principles and implementation process for embedding sustainability
in to business strategy and policy.
 Know how to develop and/or influence the development of a successful policy and strategy
for sustainable business and how to implement it. Both from the position of leadership and
from that of intermediate manager.
A secondary level objective will be for participants to gain enhanced awareness of the wide
range of resources available to help those developing sustainable business practices.
Style and tone of programme - A practical ‘how-to’ course to equip students, interested in
promoting responsible business, with the tools and techniques needed to embed sustainability into
business purpose, strategy and practice. The opening session led by Prof. David Grayson,
introduces students to the basic ideas of sustainable business - Environment, Social and Economic.
Students will be introduced to a 7 step management model for creating “corporate social
opportunity.” This 7 step model is the underpinning framework of this programme.
The concept of sustainable business is open to individual interpretation which is influenced by
personal values and tacit experience and knowledge. Emerging research in the area of embedding
sustainable business principles suggests that it is important for business managers to be aware of
their own sensemaking of sustainable business as an enabler of sustainable business enactment in
organisations. Therefore, the intention is that the practical 7 Step management model is
complemented throughout the programme by individual interpretation of what sustainable business
means in different world view realities.
The concept of operationalising triple bottom line (Economic, Environmental and Societal) business
responsibility is demonstrated practically through the 7 step framework. Each of the learning
sessions provides practical techniques, tools and examples as a process to address ESG / business
impact and opportunities. As well as an effective teaching framework, with some bespoke
modification, this 7 step learning model can also be applied in day -to -day business change
programmes to embed sustainable business practices in any business type in any country.
Content
The module is taught by a range of tutors from different organisational development disciplines.
Each tutor explores the sustainability and corporate responsibility aspects of their discipline. The
opening session led by Prof. David Grayson, introduces students to the basic ideas of sustainability
and sustainable business, including a seven step management model for creating corporate social
opportunity, and techniques for stakeholder-engagement. A summary of his book on which this is
based, can be found on the Cranfield Knowledge-Interchange On-line, along with an audio
interview, in which David Grayson summarises and updates his book’s key points. The January
2011 edition of the Harvard Business Review has a feature article by Prof. Michael Porter and Mark
Kramer on “shared value” which is very analogous to the Grayson and Hodges “Corporate Social
Opportunity” as Porter and Kramer outlined in their earlier HBR article (Dec 2006).
Subsequent sessions focus on:
- Ethical and environmental issues in supply chain management (including measuring carbon
footprint)
- Creating and managing the enabling conditions for sustainable business
- The business case justification for sustainable business
- Corporate governance and leadership in relation to sustainability
- Key drivers influencing sustainable business practices from a marketplace perspective, with
an emphasis on stakeholder and brand communication
- How to get the most out of engaging with the right stakeholders in the right way, at the
right time
- How companies can report their sustainability activities, and how what they report impacts
upon their business operations
Learning methods
Course teaching will be a diverse mixture of interactive sessions, including lectures, film-clips from
business leaders discussing their experience of creating sustainable business, class debate, case
studies and business dilemma simulation. The emphasis will be on class participation. Students will
be encouraged to bring to class current media stories and real business challenges for discussion.
Up to date information and source material will be posted regularly on the students’ portal.
Students are also encouraged to attend the regular meetings of the Cranfield CR Network, the
agenda for which can be found on the Doughty Centre website: www.doughtycentre.info. The
assessment will be conducted in real businesses to ensure the transfer of ‘knowledge into action’ in
terms of managing sustainable business (see below).
Assessment
The assessment for the elective will be in two parts:
1.
Throughout the sessions students are required to keep a learning journal about each
session. A different student will be selected at each session, by the session leader, to produce a
1000-1500 word summary of how that particular session has impacted on your interpretation of
what managing sustainable business means. The summary should include an account of the
collective (group) interpretation and also individual differences in interpretation and why. The
summary should be circulated to the session leader, David Grayson and other class participants
within 2 days of the class.
This will account for 20% of the final mark.
2.
To put new skills, knowledge and techniques in to real business practice, a group project will
require students to produce a sustainable business plan report from a ‘scoping study’ of a
real business’s ESG impacts and opportunities. The report should include a written
recommendation for stakeholder engagement, measurement and reporting. This will involve visiting
a local business to interview key stakeholders, including supply chain and employees. To effectively
scope ESG materiality, students are expected to study the business’s website and any existing
sustainability literature or reporting. The report must also include an assessment of which maturity
stage the business represents and why.
The report should be no more than 6000 words, submitted by 1st July. Each group will be expected
to submit a summary to the participating business.
This will account for 80% of the final mark.
It is suggested that the Capstone conference organisers might wish to include a presentation from
the group with the highest mark to the Capstone conference.
Access: Doughty Centre faculty will arrange for FTMBA students to have access to a local business.
Integration with other subjects
The ‘Managing Sustainable Business’ elective like other electives is an opportunity to apply the
knowledge and learning from the core courses and to explore the topic of sustainable business in
more detail, specialist learning which is complementary to other MBA sessions (see below) . MSBE
offers a more detailed and hands-on inquiry into the practical operational issues of ‘how- to’ embed
Sustainability and Responsibility into a business as a vital component for Corporate Opportunity
and competitive advantage.
The ideas behind sustainable business and issues of corporate responsibility intertwine with all the
core MBA subjects.
- Strategic Marketing involves the connections between marketing, brand image, corporate
reputation, mission and values. How does marketing relate to creating stakeholder value
more broadly?
- People Management includes many fundamental CR issues, particularly ethical and
responsible decision- making, internal labour and human rights and local community issues.
- Supply Chain Management provides the core context for examining a company’s degree of
influence over its whole value chain and its legal and moral complicity in the environmental
and social issues arising at any point in the chain.
- Project Management increasingly entails stakeholder analysis and engagement,
environmental and social risk analysis and management techniques.
- Operations Management increasingly involves important health, safety and environment
issues.
-
-
-
Strategic Management for many companies now includes the need to build into their
strategic thinking their involvement in national and international public policy issues
concerning the environment and human rights.
Accounting needs to develop internal and external mechanisms for measuring non-financial
performance and to consider its respective synergies and trade-offs with financial
performance.
Economics courses touch on every aspect of the purpose and contribution of business.
Issues of sustainability and globalisation are central to economics and CR.
The Financial Management course links to thinking about the relationship between financial
and non-financial management issues.
The Organisational Behaviour courses provide an ideal opportunity to relate students’
personal values to the purpose of their work and life and the organisations they will lead and
manage in the future and the extent they will embrace corporate responsibility business
strategies.
Business Law includes Agency theory concerning director’s responsibilities. While ‘hard law’
may restrict companies’ legal responsibilities primarily to serving shareholder interests,
students should also be aware of evolving ‘soft law’ relating to the interests of other
stakeholders and public expectations arising from it. International law, especially
concerning human rights, is also relevant.
The course on IT raises considerable environmental management and human rights issues,
while Strategic Decision Sciences might consider how far these techniques could be applied
to corporate responsibility management.
The Managing Sustainable Business elective, like all electives, is an opportunity to apply what has
been learnt in terms 1 and 2, to what is an increasingly central issue for business.
Recommended Reading
Pre- class reading has been carefully selected to compliment your learning experience in each
session.
Required reading

Grayson, D. & Hodges, A. (2004) CSO - Corporate Social Opportunity: Seven Steps to Make
Corporate Social Responsibility work for your business. Greenleaf.

Porter, M.E & Kramer, M.R. (2011) ‘How to Reinvent Capitalism - and
unleash a wave of innovation and growth’, HBR

Senge, P. Smith, B. Kruschwitz, N. Laur, J. & Schley, S. (2008) ‘The Necessary Revolution –
How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world’
Chapter 9. Positioning for the Future and the Present . pp. 119-139

Zadek, S.(2004) ‘The Path to Corporate Responsibility’, HBR

Zadek , S. (2007), The Civil Corporation
Chapter 8. The New Civil Governance. pp 115-127
Chapter 9. Triple bottom line. pp. 131-147
Other useful sections - Business and Society, Ethics and stakeholder management.

InterfaceFlor- Climbing Mount Sustainability
www.interfaceglobal.com/Sustainability/Our-Journey/7-Fronts-ofSustainability.aspx
www.interfaceflor.eu/internet/web.nsf/webpages/61_EU.
http://interfaceflorblog.com/





Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility ‘ How to guides’
www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/p9359/Research/Research-Centres/Doughty-Centre-forCorporate-Responsibility/Publications/Our-Publications
Stakeholder engagement: a road map to meaningful engagement
The governance of corporate responsibility
Mind the Gap: Making Sense of Sustainability from a Business Manager's Perspective
WWF Carbon footprint calculator
http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/
Further optional reading


Visser, W. (2010 ) ‘The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business’
Werbach, A. (2009) Strategy for Sustainability – a business manifesto
Websites: students are encouraged to search the websites of a number of the leading international
thinkers and organisations concerned with sustainability and responsible business such as:

John Elkington

Business for Social Responsibility

Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies

Corporate Citizenship Company

www.CSReurope.org

Global Reporting Initiative

Accountability

International Institute for Sustainable Development

International Business Leaders Forum

Sustainability

Transparency International

World Business Council on Sustainable Development

Mallen Baker on-line resource on Corporate Social Responsibility

Business in the Community

Simon Zadek's website

www.business-humanrights.org Business and Human Rights Resource Centre
EXAMPLE OF THE FIRST 3 SESSIONS
FULL TIME MBA 2010-11
MANAGING SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
Sessions 1+2
Professor David Grayson
Step 1. Identifying the Triggers
Step 2. Scoping what Matters
Introduction:
The session starts with a course introduction and an overview of the relationship between
sustainable business and competitive advantage.
Students will be introduced to the triggers and drivers for Environment, Social and Governance
(ESG) enactment and a framework of how to scope ESG issues. This ‘scoping framework’ will be
built on throughout the course and will be used ultimately as a practical tool for the end of course
assessment to conduct a ESG scoping study in a real business.
In these first sessions students will also be introduced to a macro level view of stakeholder
engagement which will be built on from a more detailed perspective throughout the following
sessions.
Session outline:

Presentation about the origins, development and contemporary understanding of Corporate
Sustainability & Responsibility (CS&R)

Presentation and discussion about what is understood as Environmental, Social and
Governance issues (ESG)

Presentation of situations where companies have been exposed do different triggers,
followed by discussion about what was happening and what did trigger / could trigger
companies to enact CS&R

A class activity will take a selected industry, for students to discuss various ESG issues
related to that industry.

The 7 steps scoping study framework tool will be introduced
Intended learning outcomes:

Understand stages of CS&R Maturity

Have an overview of the purpose, content and limits of the 7 Step Model

Understand the triggers driving business to embrace CS&R

Understand how specific events can be triggers for more systemic reviews of company’s ESG
performance

Understand the importance for companies to understand the most material ESG issues they
face

Learn how to apply specific scoping techniques and the pros/cons of each and when to use
each;

Understand concept of stakeholders and how they can affect / be affected by business

START to understand the association between a sustainable business and ESG
Reading
Required reading and preparation:
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql_QSDUbb8U Unilever and palm oil.
The full 7 Step process can be seen in; Grayson, D. & Hodges, A. (2004) CSO- Corporate Social
Opportunity: Seven Steps to Make Corporate Social Responsibility work for your business.
Greenleaf.
Copies of this book can be borrowed from the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility and the
Knowledge Interchange.
Porter, M.E & Kramer, M.R. (2011) ‘How to Reinvent Capitalism—andunleash a wave of innovation
and growth’, HBR
Other useful reading:
Senge, P. Smith, B. Kruschwitz, N. Laur, J. & Schley, S. (2008) ‘The Necessary Revolution – How
individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world’ Chapter 9.
Positioning for the Future and the Present. pp. 119-139
FULL TIME MBA 2010-11
MANAGING SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
Session 3
Dr Carlos Mena
Step 2. Scoping what matters: Global sourcing and its implications to
sustainability
Introduction:
The sourcing of products from across the global marketplace is an increasing trend associated with
economic development. This trend is the result of many independent decisions taken by firms
around the world looking for new sources of competitive advantage. However, these decisions can
also have unintended consequences, exposing the firms to hidden costs and risks, as well as
leading to the over exploitation of natural resources and increasing emissions of pollutants and
greenhouse gases. Full and effective scoping of the material ESG issues will help a business to
manage its global supply chain sustainably and responsibly.
Intended learning outcomes:
By the end of the session and the related work students will:

Be familiar with current trends in terms of global sourcing

Have an appreciation of the reasons why companies choose to source globally and the
benefits and limitations of this strategy

Understand the implications of global sourcing in terms of sustainable development, from an
economic , social and environmental perspective

Have a better understanding the trade-offs between cost, time and the environment when
making global sourcing decisions.
Demonstration software:
The session will include a demonstration of a computer simulation to analyse the trade-offs
involved in global sourcing decisions. No preparation is required.
Reading
Some papers have been included for those interested in exploring this subject in detail. These
papers will be made available electronically before the session, however, no reading is specifically
required.
Carter, C.R. & Rogers, D.S., 2008. A framework of sustainable supply chain management: moving
toward new theory. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 38(5),
pp.360-387.
Hart, S.L., 1995. A Natural-resource-based view of the firm. Academy of Management Review,
20(4), pp.986-1014.
Mena, C. 2010. Sustainable Global Sourcing, Management Focus, 29, pp. 10-13.
Other useful sources:
WWF One Planet Business – www.wwf.org.uk/downloads/one_planet_business_first_report.pdf
WWF Carbon footprint calculator
http://footprint.wwf.org.uk