SW 221-LSB - Sustainability in Institutions

Min Units: 3
Max Units: 3
There is an emerging body of thought that argues that institutions of all sorts, including but not limited to businesses, in order to be successful in the long run need to take into account economic performance, environmental impacts, and social justice. The course will explore what these concepts mean and the challenge of implementing a workable integration of these concepts. The course is crossdisciplinary and will get into issues of science, social science, ethics, and economics. Historically, environmental and social impacts have been considered, if at all, as costs to be ignored, minimized, or externalized as much as possible. This new body of thought argues that environmental quality and social performance should be integrated into institutional strategy. This course will introduce students to economic and ethical analysis in order to help them to have appropriate bases for making judgments. The course will then explore the challenge of minimizing environmental and social impacts. (U) Occasionally