Graduate business students examine workplace sustainability issues in new course

Sustainability as a business practice continues to gain momentum across industries and with corporate investors. The premise is simple: make sure that we have, and will continue to have, the water, materials and resources to protect human health and the environment. The directive to business is equally simple: find a way to be environmentally responsible while still being profitable.

Providing graduate business students with a skill set in sustainable business practices is Andrea Tangari, assistant professor of marketing. Tangari, who earned her doctorate in marketing, is a prolific, internationally-known researcher in the area of marketing and public policy with a focus on the effects of "green" labeling on consumer preferences and buying behavior. She has developed a new course, Topics in Business Administration: Sustainable Business Strategy (BA 7500), which is offered for the first time in fall 2012.

“This is a survey course and touches on every business discipline. We’re studying how businesses are examining the ways in which their practices influence the environment and society, as well as how business is responding to individuals’ environmental concerns and external regulatory pressures. In this class, students address these issues and examine how organizations can be good to the environment while being profitable,” explained Tangari.

Course objectives include:

• Examination of the impact of business on the environment
• Development of business practices that benefit both the environment and profitability
• Analysis of the advantages and risks of implementing sustainable strategies
• Exploration of how sustainability issues relate to all parts of an organization and how to address them

Tangari, who has conducted her own research on the topic of sustainability, added that she is interested in welcoming speakers to class who could address sustainability from a government regulatory perspective.

Beginning winter 2013, the course will be offered as a management or marketing elective under the name “Business and Sustainability.”

For further information about the course, or if you are able to present current regulatory issues, please contact Tangari at em1834@wayne.edu.
 

View all news stories