Oxford Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme
An executive strategy programme focused on equipping business leaders with what they need to know about driving sustainability efforts.
6 weeks, excluding 1 week orientation.
7–10 hours of self-paced learning per week, entirely online.
Email: oxfordonline@getsmarter.com
Call: +44 1865 950 945
About this programme
As the role of corporations in a global economy comes under ever greater scrutiny for their obligations to society, it is increasingly vital for a company’s business strategy to consider its environmental impact. This demands that leaders have the ability to drive and maintain sustainable processes across their organisations, and transform the traditional approach to value creation in order to help stimulate the triple bottom line – people, profit, and planet.
The Oxford Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme takes an executive-level perspective on business sustainability, looking beyond traditional views of measuring business performance to introduce new methods for recognising corporate value and reporting on sustainable practices. Develop the skills needed to drive carbon management efforts, while formulating effective key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring your corporation’s environmental impact and dependency on natural, social, and human capital.
Over six weeks, you’ll gain access to expert insights and leading research from across the University of Oxford, enabling you to develop a personal plan for change to promote meaningful sustainability strategies in your organisation.
This Oxford Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme is certified by the United Kingdom CPD Certification Service, and may be applicable to individuals who are members of, or are associated with, UK-based professional bodies. The programme has an estimated 60 hours of learning.
Note: should you wish to claim CPD activity, the onus is on you. Oxford Saïd and GetSmarter accept no responsibility, and cannot be held responsible, for the claiming or validation of hours or points.
Sixty-one per cent of institutional investors have increased their investment in companies that excel in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.
KPMG (2020).
What the programme covers
Beginning with an exploration of value creation in capitalist systems, the Oxford Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme allows you to examine how strategies for managing sustainability and ESG factors can create long-term value for shareholders and society alike.
You’ll learn to lead efforts to address sustainability concerns in your organisation, while developing the skills necessary to measure the social impact of these strategies. You’ll step beyond traditional methods of performance measurement, and learn how sustainability can be integrated into existing corporate governance and risk management structures.
The programme focuses on two aspects of the environment – in the first, you’ll examine climate change, its risks and opportunities, the corporate impact on climate change, and how this may be reduced. In the second, you’ll investigate how corporations can account for their natural capital costs, developing a greater understanding of sustainable approaches to resource management. An ongoing project throughout the programme will see you develop essential sustainability leadership skills and provide you with a personal plan for achieving lasting, meaningful change in your organisation.
A powerful collaboration
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford is collaborating with digital education provider GetSmarter to create a new class of learning experience – one that is immersive, collaborative, and designed for optimal accessibility for the busy working professional.
About Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Saïd Business School blends the best of new and old. Deeply embedded in an 800-year-old world-class university, Oxford Saïd strives to educate people for successful business careers. As a community, Oxford Saïd seeks to use business acumen and global networks to address long-horizon phenomena like demographic change, new technologies, and natural resource scarcity. Oxford Saïd is committed to delivering cutting-edge education and ground-breaking research that transforms individuals, organisations, business practice and society.
Join the Oxford Executive Education Alumni Group on LinkedIn*
This is an official Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, alumni group for all open, online, and executive programmes. You’ll be able to network with past participants of other online and on-campus Oxford Saïd programmes and gain first access to School news.
*Access to this group will only be granted following the participant’s successful completion and passing of the programme.
About GetSmarter
GetSmarter, part of edX, partners with the world's leading universities and institutions to select, design and deliver premium online short programmes with a data-driven focus on learning gain.
Technology meets academic rigour in GetSmarter’s people-mediated model, which enables lifelong learners across the globe to obtain industry-relevant skills that are certified by the world’s most reputable academic institutions.
As a participant of this programme, you will also gain unlimited access to edX’s Career Engagement Network at no extra cost. This platform will provide you with valuable career resources and events to support your professional journey. You can look forward to benefits including rich content, career templates, webinars, workshops, career fairs, networking events, panel discussions, and exclusive recruitment opportunities to connect you with potential employers.
What You’ll Learn
You’ll be welcomed to the programme and begin connecting with fellow participants, while exploring the navigation and tools of your Online Campus. Be alerted to key milestones in the learning path, and review how your results will be calculated and distributed.
You’ll be required to complete your participant profile, confirm your email address for the delivery of your digital certificate, and submit a digital copy of your passport/identity document.
Discover how corporations view the value they create within a capitalist system, and how that view affects their impact on stakeholders, and ultimately, their sustainability.
- Articulate the role of the corporation within a capitalist system
- Conclude how a corporation can view sustainability in terms of both shareholder value and value to society
- Evaluate a corporation’s conception of value creation and its engagement with stakeholders
Explore why climate change and carbon emissions matter to corporations.
- Discuss how a corporation contributes to climate change, and the impact that climate change has on a corporation
- Determine how a corporation can address the identified key elements of climate change
- Consider reasons why a corporation should reduce its net carbon emissions
- Assess the effectiveness of a corporation’s efforts to manage its carbon contributions to climate change
Explore how a corporation engages with natural resources, in terms of what resources it depends upon, and what resources it impacts.
- Discuss the impact a corporation can have on natural resources in its value chain
- Determine the extent to which a corporation’s value chain depends on natural resources
- Analyse how a corporation can reduce its impact and dependence on natural resources
- Recommend how a corporation can ensure that natural resources are used more sustainably throughout its value chain
Explore how a corporation views its dependence and impact on both human and social capital.
- Discuss the role of both human and social capital in a corporation
- Articulate the extent to which a corporation has benefits and obligations, with respect to both human and social capital
- Evaluate how a corporation measures its impact and dependence on both human and social capital
Recommend ways in which a corporation’s governance can embed sustainability.
- Discuss the role of corporate governance in assuring alignment between the corporation’s activities and its sustainability goals
- Articulate how a corporation’s governance structure ensures that the corporation has oversight of its sustainability efforts and aligns incentives to those efforts
- Analyse how a corporation should make use of its structures and systems in order to most effectively mitigate or manage risks to its sustainability
- Argue what a corporation’s governance structures can do to facilitate the successful implementation and maintenance of sustainability efforts
Plan how you can enact sustainable change in your corporation.
- Articulate what points of change within your corporation you can and should affect
- Analyse what goals you need to achieve in order to facilitate the desired changes to your corporation’s sustainability
- Decide how to most effectively engage the stakeholders you plan to involve in your change process
- Design a plan describing how you will implement changes within your corporation
Who should take this programme
Sustainability is a global priority, making the Oxford Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme relevant to a broad range of roles across industries. Senior professionals with an interest in pursuing sustainable business and leadership objectives, particularly in the finance, banking, investment, IT, and manufacturing sectors, as well as the public sector and non-profit organisations, will gain insight into new strategies and measures of performance to help achieve their goals.
Those in leadership roles will gain strategic tools for achieving stakeholder buy-in and driving sustainability as a key objective for their organisation, while those working in finance and operations functions will benefit from understanding the integrated reporting methods of accounting for natural capital.
This programme is for you if you want to:
Lead positive change
Develop the leadership skills to promote and manage sustainability in your organisation or move into a more specialised role.
Meet new business needs
Learn integrated accounting methods for measuring corporate value creation, natural capital, and sustainability efforts.
Achieve sustainability
goals
Develop an executive perspective on sustainability, and align governance structures to corporate activities that contribute to sustainable development goals.
Reduce environmental impact
Create a practical action plan for developing and implementing sustainable practices in your corporation.
About the certificate
Upon successful completion of the programme, you’ll receive a certificate of attendance from Oxford Saïd as proof of your knowledge of sustainability leadership.
Assessment is continuous and based on a series of practical assignments completed online. In order to be issued with a digital certificate, you’ll need to meet the requirements outlined in the programme handbook. The handbook will be made available to you as soon as you begin the programme.
Your digital certificate will be issued in your legal name and sent to you upon successful completion of the programme, as per the stipulated requirements.
Who you’ll learn from
This subject matter expert from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford guides the programme design and appears in a number of programme videos, along with a variety of industry professionals.
Your Programme Directors
Richard Barker
Professor of Accounting, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Mary Johnstone-Louis
Senior Fellow in Management Practice, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Guest Experts
Alan Morrison
Professor of Law and Finance, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Aoife Haney
Research Lecturer in Innovation and Enterprise, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Anette Mikes
Associate Professor of Accounting, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Bettina Wittneben
Associate Scholar, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Cameron Hepburn
Director, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
Caroline Rees
President and Co-Founder, Shift
Charmian Love
Social Entrepreneur in Residence, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Colin Mayer
Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Dieter Helm
Professor of Economic Policy, University of Oxford; Chair, Natural Capital Committee, University of Oxford
Dominic Emery
Chief of Staff, BP
Fiona Reynolds
CEO, UN PRI
Hiromichi Mizuno
Independent Director, Tesla, Inc.
Katherine Willis
Principal, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Ladi Balogun
Group Chief Executive, FCMB Group Plc
Liz Fisher
Professor of Environmental Law, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
Marcelo Behar
Vice President of Sustainability and Group Affairs, Natura &Co
Matthew Amengual
Associate Professor in International Business, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Mary Johnstone-Louis
Senior Research Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Marc Thompson
Senior Fellow in Strategy and Organisation, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Malcolm McCulloch
Associate Professor in Engineering Science, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Marc Ventresca
Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Martin Rich
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Future-Fit Foundation
Marya Besharov
Professor of Organisations and Impact, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Myles Allen
Professor of Geosystem Science, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Paul Polman
Co-Founder, IMAGINE
Rafael Ramirez
Professor of Practice, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Rodney Irwin
Managing Director, Redefining Value and Education, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Rupert Younger
Director, Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Russell Picot
Chair of the Trustee Board, HSBC Bank UK
Robert Eccles
Visiting Professor of Management Practice, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Shriti Vadera
Chair, Prudential Plc
Veronica Poole
Partner, Deloitte LLP
How you’ll learn
Every programme is broken down into manageable, weekly modules, designed to accelerate your learning process through diverse learning activities:
- Work through your downloadable and online instructional material
- Interact with your peers and learning facilitators through weekly class-wide forums and reviewed small group discussions
- Enjoy a wide range of interactive content, including video lectures, infographics, live polls, and more
- Investigate rich, real-world case studies
- Apply what you learn each week to quizzes and ongoing project submissions, culminating in a personal plan for change to drive sustainable value creation in your business
Your success team
GetSmarter, with whom Oxford Saïd is collaborating to deliver this online programme, provides a personalised approach to online education that ensures you’re supported throughout your learning journey.
Head Tutor
A subject expert who’ll guide you through content-related challenges.
Success Advisor
Your one-on-one support, available during university hours (8am–5pm GMT) to resolve technical and administrative challenges.
Global success team
Available 24/7 to solve your tech-related and administrative queries and concerns.
“Triggering climate change and potentially devastating economic effects, the greatest issue of our time is global warming. The corporate sector is at the heart of this issue; it is a major contributor to global warming and is also greatly exposed to the effects of climate change. We remain resolutely focused, however, on quarterly earnings as an indicator of corporate performance. While sustainability accounting and reporting is increasingly common, it is also marginal, and largely inadequate for investors’ decision-making.”
Oxford Saïd (Nov, 2019)
Richard Barker
Professor of Accounting, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Technical requirements
Basic requirements
In order to complete a programme, you’ll need a current email account and access to a computer and the internet, as well as a PDF Reader. You may need to view Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and read and create documents in Microsoft Word or Excel.
Browser requirements
We recommend that you use Google Chrome as your internet browser when accessing the Online Campus. Although this is not a requirement, we have found that this browser performs best for ease of access to the programme material. This browser can be downloaded here.
Additional requirements
Certain programmes may require additional software and resources. These additional software and resource requirements will be communicated to you upon registration and/or at the beginning of the programme. Please note that Google, Vimeo, and YouTube may be used in our programme delivery, and if these services are blocked in your jurisdiction, you may have difficulty in accessing the programme content. Please check with an Enrolment Advisor before registering for this programme if you have any concerns about this affecting your experience with the Online Campus.
