Information on individual educational components (ECTS-Course descriptions) per semester

Sustainability in Economic Development

Degree programme International Business Administration
Subject area Business and Management
Type of degree Bachelor
Full-time
Winter Semester 2024
Course unit title Sustainability in Economic Development
Course unit code 025008050101
Language of instruction English
Type of course unit (compulsory, optional) Compulsory
Teaching hours per week 2
Year of study 2024
Level of the course / module according to the curriculum
Number of ECTS credits allocated 3
Name of lecturer(s) Julia LODER, Katharina REIDL, Nina SCHNEIDER
Requirements and Prerequisites

Successful completion of the course Economics

Course content
  • Sustainability as a global challenge/goal
  • Functional weaknesses of markets/market economies
  • The 17 sustainability goals of the United Nations
  • Consequences for corporate strategy
  • Consequences for production and trade
  • Consequences for traffic, transport and mobility
  • Consequences for financial and capital markets
  • Emission rights and emissions trading
  • Supply chain legislation
  • CSR and environmental reporting
Learning outcomes

In recent years, sustainable management and ethically and morally responsible corporate action have changed from a niche topic to one of the determinants for the strategic orientation of companies. Accelerated by the noticeable consequences of global warming, the increased differences in wealth and income due to globalisation and dramatic individual cases in production facilities outside the industrialised countries, international politics and the goods and financial markets are reacting. Companies need a clear orientation in questions of sustainability in all its dimensions.

The students know the 17 sustainability goals of the United Nations, their significance for individuals and for companies and have an overview of the status of the legislation derived from them in the EU and in Austria.

They can recognise the medium and long-term requirements of these sustainability goals for different sectors and for the different parts of a company's value creation and describe them in their own words. The students can describe examples of successful implementations and concepts that can be expanded in corporate practice in a well-founded manner.

The students know about the objective and functioning of emissions trading, they can transfer the intended incentives to entrepreneurial decisions and discuss possible solutions for affected business models. They also know the responsibility transferred to companies for the observance of elementary human and labour rights in the supply chain of a global sourcing company and are able to discuss solutions for affected business models.

The students can evaluate and interpret company reports on environmental and CSR aspects.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Interactive course with lecture, case studies, exercises in individual and group work

Assessment methods and criteria

Written exam

Comment

None

Recommended or required reading

Meuleman, Louis (2020): Metagovernance for Sustainability: A Framework for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goal, London/NewYork: Routledge.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face, distance learning)

Classes with compulsory attendance in individual teaching units (seminars) supplemented by asynchronous teaching units for the presentation of elementary basics, which are assumed as given knowledge