Learning objectives / outcomes:
By the end of this module participants should be able to:

• Understand the key concepts, theories, practices, and trends related to ethically-charged real life business problems including ethical and sustainability issues.
• Understand current theory and legislation on CSR.
• Identify the blind spots in decision making and the driving forces behind misconduct as well as learn how to build an “ethical compass”.
• Identify and understand the legal framework and common management practices designed to facilitate and encourage ethical business.

Contents:

• Introducing Business Ethics.
• Sustainability as a key goal for business ethics in the age of Globalization. CSR in an international context.
• The corporation as part of a wider society. Corporate Responsibility, Stakeholder theory of the firm and Corporate Citizenship.
• Normative and Descriptive Ethical Theories & Alternative perspectives. Making Decisions in Business Ethics: Individual & Situational influences on decision making.
• The Regulatory framework of CSR. Recent developments in International and EU legislation. Corporate Accountability vs Corporate Liability.
• Managing Business Ethics. Tools and Techniques of Business Ethics Management.

Learning objectives / outcomes:

• Understand the growing legal and regulatory focus on corporates to address the adverse impacts  that their activities and supply chains have on environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) related issues, including human rights.
• Draw attention towards the importance of assessing the ESG impact of a company’s supply chain, by undertaking due diligence across its value chain and take action to mitigate against any material adverse ESG risks, especially in light of the proposed EU legislation that would introduce mandatory ESG due diligence for supply chains.

Learning objectives / outcomes:

Through this webinar participants will:

• Gain an understanding of how the EU Due Diligence legislation relates to supply chain management and procurement
• Establish the relationship between EU Due Diligence legislation and socio-ecological challenges facing organisations
• Advance their knowledge of relevant regulatory and voluntary approaches towards sustainability in supply chains and procurement
• Explore how they can proactively embed Due Diligence in the ways of working of their organisations through examples and games
• Surface the key issues and debates related to sustainable supply chain management and procurement
• Develop a better sense of their own assumptions and position towards relation between business and sustainability

Contents:

• Due diligence in a sustainability context: the urgency of addressing ecological and social challenges and
• Due diligence implications: what it has to do with procurement and supply chains
• Defining sustainable supply chain management and sustainable procurement
• Sustainable SCM and procurement: how to become pro-active
• The future of sustainable SCM and procurement: global trends

Learning objectives/ outcomes:

• Dissect the factors that affect the organization of work in the immediate future
• Evaluate implications of impending changes for ensuring decent and sustainable work for all
• Construct an organizational engagement / action plan to address the challenges of the future of work
• Examine perspectives to Sustainable HRM and discuss the need for a paradigm shift in HRM
• Consider practical ways through which HR can effectively contribute towards the achievement of SDGs

Contents:

• Impact of technological advancements, economic factors, demographic patterns, societal norms and sustainability on the organization of work
• Repercussions on the labour market, competencies in demand and emerging working models / forms of work
• Scope of intervention of alternative stakeholders (institutions, organizations, individuals) in ensuring decent and sustainable work for all
• The role of HR in organisations’ sustainability, the need for a paradigm shift from a market-driven HR to a multi-stakeholder, multi-purpose HR
• From socially responsible HRM, Green HRM, Triple Bottom Line HRMt owards Common Good HRM?
• Contributing to SDGs through HRM practices: workplace democracy and self-management; unbiasing; equality, diversity and inclusion; integrating SDGs in rewards and performance; business and human rights; SDGs shaping job seekers’ attraction and selection; employment creation

Contents:

• The journey of a professional in the sustainability sector
• Amdocs Case study and the framework in place
• The implementation of ESG for a global technological company
• Human Capital: an asset with a significant impact on the sustainability strategy

Learning objectives/outcomes:

• Explain the relationship between Corporate Ethics, Corporate Governance and Sustainability
• Understand the importance of dealing with Sustainability and ESG criteria at the Board level
• Be aware of the recent Sustainable Corporate Governance initiatives at European level
• Learn how to build a sustainable board
• Be familiar with good practices and trends in Sustainable Corporate Governance
• Understand the Framework for Sustainable Excellence

Contents:

• Corporate Governance at a Glance
• Board of Directors and Sustainability / ESG
• Sustainable Corporate Governance

– Due Diligence on the Supply Chain

– Fighting corruption and the role of the Boards / ISO37001

– Roadmap to Build Sustainable Corporate Governance

• Framework for Sustainable Excellence

– The road to success: Direction – Execution – Results

– Linking the “G” (Governance) with the “S” (Society)

Scope:

To clearly identify the impacts of the climate crisis on the global economy, explore the possible policy responses and focus on highlighting the short and long term consequences for businesses.

Learning objectives / outcomes:

• Highlight the impact of climate crisis on global economy, both in the medium to long run and in relation to current events (energy crisis, international tensions).
• Introduce current and future policy reactions attempting to steer the economy towards climate neutrality.
• Discuss consumers’ voluntary actions (green consumers).
• Relate the above described rapid changes to businesses’ operation.
• Identify impacts on businesses and examine them grouping them into three categories: physical, transitional, and liability risks.
• Identify the steps, focusing on risk management, which could assist businesses in becoming resilient to climate risks.
• Proactive vs reactive business responses: the role of business in battling climate crisis, or turning a crisis into opportunities.

Contents:

• Climate Crisis essentials.
• The economic impacts of climate crisis.
• Climate policies: the slow international response, national policies, the EU climate policy framework. (Green Deal, Farm to Fork, New EU climate targets, Green Bonds, Incorporating sustainability issues to competition policies).
• The evolution and the role of green consumers.
• Analysis of direct (physical) and indirect (transitional, and liability) risks, exposing the effect of non-linearities:

• Long and short term physical impacts: flooding, hurricanes, drought, wildfires, etc
• Costs to businesses from the introduction of climate policy and regulations as well as from failing to adopt to changes in consumers’ preferences
• Costs from failing to comply with the evolving regulatory framework

• Incorporating climate risks to the core business risks and develop strategies to mitigate them.
• Going beyond legal requirements and climate/sustainability reporting to gain long term competitive advantage.
• Sectoral case studies.

Scope:

To present empirical facts, challenges and open questions in the field of sustainable finance and responsible investments from the perspective of policy makers, investors and corporates

Learning Objectives/Outcomes:

• Understand whether institutional investors consider ESG as a factor in their decisions
• Demonstrate how we can measure climate change risks
• Present evidence on whether sustainable investments outperform
• Discuss challenges and open questions

Contents:

• Which risks do investors take into account?
• The shortcomings of ESG ratings
• Real time measurement of climate change risks- which are the ones that investors care about?
• Do sustainable investments pay off?
• Does divestment pay off?
• The issue of materiality
• Challenges for policy makers

Contents:

• The ESG Era

– Connecting the dots

• The Biopharma Investor ESG Communications Initiative

– Origins

– Outcomes

• Key Investor Expectations

– How and where do investors get their ESG information?

– What are Investors saying?

Scope: 
To identify the links between CSR (or ESG) communications, marketing, and analytics.

Learning objectives/ outcomes:
At the end of this session students should be able to:

• Define CSR performance as a key stakeholder satisfaction metric.
• Measure CSR performance.
• Reflect on the Greenwashing phenomenon.
• Offer research-based advice on how to communicate ESG.
• Review and experience survey-based instruments to measure ESG performance.
• Understand and analyze the role of Marketing Analytics tools like Segmentation and Sentiment Analytics in helping firms understand their stakeholders and “compete” on ESG performance.
• Review and experience how AI and Big Data disrupts CSR (ESG) scoring with implications for greenwashing and marketing ethics (including for example selling practices & product labeling)

Contents:

• Marketing Reframed: Stakeholder Satisfaction & CSR Performance.
• CSR meets Marketing Analytics
• Truvalue Platform™ Demonstration (Artificial Intelligence, CSR/ESG Firm Scoring, and Marketing Ethics scoring). Truvalue Labs™ an awarded Fintech, applies Artificial Intelligence to massive volumes of unstructured data and scores firms on ESG behavior that has a material impact on company value. We will also focus on how AI allows firms to be monitored 24/7 on marketing ethics including customer privacy, access & affordability, product quality & safety, customer welfare, and selling practices & product labeling)

Contents:

• TITAN’s Approach for Materiality and Targets 2025 (as introduction).
• Sectoral Approach and the leverage and adaptation for TITAN.
• TITAN’s strategic plan and actions as practitioner.

Learning objectives/outcomes:

• Understand the materiality principle and its most recent developments
• Understand the difference between materiality (principle), materiality assessment, stakeholder engagement;
• Analyze and evaluate the quality, reliability, and informational value of materiality assessments;
• Learn the practical steps to conduct a materiality assessment
• Learn how to read and use a materiality assessment
• Understand the elements that characterize a good materiality assessment

Contents:

• How materiality has been transplanted from accounting and auditing to sustainability and what this means;
• Materiality definitions across standards. Focus on financial materiality, dynamic materiality, double materiality.
• Materiality in practice: key steps to conduct a materiality assessment, evidence and data to be used, making sense of the analysis
• Assessing the quality of a materiality assessment: key elements

Scope:
To highlight the role of partnerships aligning competing (private-private; private-public) or cooperative priorities.

Learning objectives / outcomes

• Integrate, analyze, evaluate, and manage the different aspects of innovative strategic partnerships at an organizational, local, and global level.
• Identify and introduce stakeholders’ related material issues within in a CSR strategy.
• Development of an action plan addressing the relevant material issues and proper transformations (identify the relevant goals and objectives; create a plan for how to achieve them; implement the proper transformations; evaluate the performance).

Contents

• How to align private sector interest with public sector priorities?
• Partnerships that go beyond the traditional models of public-private partnerships (partnerships with competitors; development organizations; donor agencies; foundations; and NGOs).
• Innovative partnerships and finance: How to move from “billions” to “trillions” in investments for financing the SDGs?
• Strategic collective action: From project based to long-term initiatives.
• The challenge of implementation and leadership.

Learning objectives / outcomes:

SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING ARENA & CONCEPTS

• Understand the sustainability reporting arena, and linkages with sustainability accounting
• Master the double materiality and other key concepts (impact, risks & opportunities, due diligence etc)
• Develop an understanding of the equivalent of financial and sustainability reports, as well as the key role the finance professionals will now play
• Understand how sustainability is well embedded into ESRS, and that how it is a turning point
• Demonstrate the coherence needed and the strategic thinking embedded into the ESRS, and how integrated the “non-financial” is with the “financial” now

SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING AS A STRATEGIC PERFORMANCE TOOL

• Demonstrate that sustainability reporting is the end of a strategic journey: how to conceive a win-win reporting journey?
• Embedding sustainability reporting within your finance functions (including internal auditing)
• How to strategically use the content developed in your current reports and responses to ratings
• Develop a roadmap and steps towards sustainability reporting as a strategic performance tool.

Contents:

• Sustainability reporting arena
• Sustainability reporting concepts
• ESRS as a turning point in the integration of sustainability, and making sustainability strategic.
• Sustainability reporting as a strategic performance tool
• The role of the finance function
• Two sustainability reporting roadmaps
• Key examples of reports will be developed and critiqued during the session.

Learning objectives:

• understanding the concept of “sustainable business model”
• using disclosures to manage “uncertainty” and stakeholders relationship
• critical thinking beyond compliance