Wroclaw, Poland

Corporate Sustainability

Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability and Socially Responsible Investing
is gaining increased attention at the level of corporations , small and medium
companies, governments, financial institutions and finally the investors, within
last ten years. It isn’t perceived as transient fashion or activities undertaken by
companies to improve their image, any more. It is rather treated as
indispensable part of corporate strategy that should increase effectiveness of
business operations and have positive impact on company’s valuation.
Therefore the concept is operationalized into rules, regulations, best practices,
disclosing policies, measuring the effects by selected ratios and finally
monitoring.
This course is, therefore, intended to expose students to the concepts,
techniques and instruments of Corporate Social Responsibility. Its objectives
are threefold, namely:
1) to understand the Corporate Sustainability and its accompanying concepts,
2) to apprehend the influences of Sustainability on major sectors of economy
and business operations,
3) to master the basic techniques of strategic problems analysis in the scope of
CS.
I. Corporate Sustainability – concept and implementation at strategic level
in companies.
Definition. Framework. Participants of the process. Implementation.
The case: How CS works in Polish companies.
II. How CS can be measured. Sustainable Reporting.
Global Reporting Initiative. Is it effective to disclose CS information?
How companies are implementing the idea of CS reporting. What is the
scope of reporting and how particular fields of activities are evaluated.
The case: Danone.
III. Sustainable scorings, equity indices, rankings and ratings.
The Role of International and National CS, ESG scoring and ratings.
Weighting, ratios, transparency and disclosure scores.
The case: ASSET4 – Thomson Reuters Datastream Sustainability Scoring.
IV. Team work on chosen companies from ASSET4 universe – presentation of
the project (details will be discussed during the classes).
V. Socially Responsible Investing – as the criterion for investment portfolio
choice.
SRI investment funds, AUM, Sustainable equity indices. How sustainable
equity indices are constructed and what are the general criteria for stock
inclusion/exclusion.
The case: Polish RESPECT index, examples of indices from countries of
summer school participants.
VI. Playing the role of consulting company in a serious game on
sustainability, Green&Great. It is a simulation game. Students will have a
chance to use in simulation of business practice the concepts that they have
learnt during the course.

Course leader

dr hab. Tomasz Słoński/ dr Karolina Daszyńska - Żygadło

Target group

Postgraduate group

Course aim

By the end of this course, the students will:
1) understand the definition of CS, and its major accompanying concepts: ESG,
Sustainability, GRI, SRI, etc.
2) apprehend the influences of CS on major fields of corporate, government and
social areas functioning
3) master the basic techniques of data analysis, strategic insights, plans and
conclusions.

Fee info

EUR 700: Summer School Poland is an intensive study and fun program through which students can earn 8 ECTS credits that may be counted towards their degrees at their home institutions.
It's great value for money! The cost of tuition, accommodation, meals and free time activities is only 700 EURO (900 USD)