ESG and Corporate Political Strategy

The world is facing multiple grand societal challenges, including climate change, social inequality, global health issues, and more. As governments face obstacles in tackling these challenges alone, corporations face increasing pressure to take on greater responsibility for their impact on society, to take public positions on contentious social issues, and to engage with government and others to shape policy and address pressing systemic challenges.
Firms' license to operate and business success nowadays depends on the ability of leadership to lead their organization through these turbulent times. To respond to the increased expectations and pressures by their various constituencies, to leverage opportunities, and to build shareholder value, corporations need to understand how to align their portfolio of market and non-market strategies. That is, they need to understand how to integrate and align their ESG and political strategies with their business strategies to sustain their competitiveness and firm value. Moreover, and importantly, they need to understand whether and how corporations can act as stewards of systemic change by actively engaging with policymakers to improve industry-wide business practices that level the playing field and mitigate system-level challenges such as climate change.
The ESG and Corporate Political Strategy course explores how organizations can align their ESG and corporate political strategies, and how they can engage with policymakers to help shape the rules of the game. In particular, through influencing legislation, regulators, the courts, and NGOs, organizations can modify the rules by which they operate and to trigger systemic change. This course teaches the tools and frameworks to effect such change. While some organizations use such methods for ill, they can also be used by (for- and non-profit) organizations alike to effect positive change, even systemic change.