Earth spinningBATE Professor Wayne Hayes, Ph.D., May 30, 2000
| Syllabus | Schedule | Bulletin Board |
TOC: Goals | Resources | Organization | Projects | Grading | Contacting the Instructor

Business & the Environment: Syllabus

Welcome to the summer, 2000, offering of Business and the Environment, aka BATE or BMBA 65001. The course meets from 6:00 P.M. to 8:30 P.M. each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from May 30 until June 30, an intense five-week period. Your professor and facilitator is Wayne Hayes, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Planning.

Goals and Description

Two main goals will guide this offering of Business and the Environment :

  1. A concrete understanding of the adaptation by and leadership of firms, industries, and the business community to the transition toward a sustainable future.
  2. The preparation and display (written and oral reports and possibly Internet site) of a sustainability plan for a particular firm, industry, or institution.

Along the way, these questions must be raised and discussed:

  1. How do businesses and industries influence the physical environment?
  2. How does the emergence of sustainable development present an opportunity and a challenge of global dimensions?
  3. How can firms and industries participate in making a sustainble future?
  4. How can firms and industries respond to environmental concerns by adjusting attitudes and behaviors? Inparticular, what is the proper role for principled corporate leaders?

Resources and Readings

A companion BATE Web Site accompanies the course as a vital and dynamic resource, including the following:

  1. The BATE Home Page address is http://www.oocities.org/~profwork/bate/index.html
  2. The syllabus
  3. The schedule of events for the summer, 2000, offering -- which may change from time to time.
  4. The BATE Bulletin Board that provides timely notices as the course unfolds: Check the BATE Bulletin Board often.
  5. The BATE Links Page provides timely links to related web sites.
  6. Student projects from the summer, 1999, are available in both written form and on the web:

Please obtain these books, available at the Ramapo Campus Store:

  1. Wolfgang Sachs, Reinhard Locke, Manfred Linz, et al., Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity, New York: Zed Books, 1998
  2. Paul Hawken. Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1999.
  3. Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field,. Dealing With an Angry Public: The Mutual Gains Approach to Resolving Disputes. New York: Free Press, 1996
  4. New Jersey Office of Sustainable Business, Living with the Future in Mind: 1999 Sustainable State Project Report, distributed in class by facilitator.

Supplementary readings are listed in the schedule and will be made available by the facilitator.

Organization

Part I: A historical glimpse of the formative effect of business institutions on the environment, including the effect on urbanization and early development. Readings excerpted and photocopied from:

  1. Henri Pirenne, The Medieval City, chapter VI The Middle Class.
  2. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, Chapter 15, Market and Nature.

Part II: Sustainable Development, global and macro perspective: The theme of sustainability has emerged as the theoretical and practical exploration of the merging of growth and environmental quality. Sustainable development is the major debate in the BATE field today. Our readings are:

  1. Braden R. Allenby, Industrial Ecology, Introduction, photocopies will be distributed
  2. Wolfgang Sachs, Reinhard Locke, Manfred Linz, et al., Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity, New York: Zed Books, 1998

Part III: Sustainability at the level of the industry and the firm is examined by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, in their new book, Natural Capitalism.

Part IV: Case studies. Lawrence Susskind of MIT offers a course for corporate executives on how to deal with environmental issues. With Patrick Field, he has turned this into a book, Dealing With an Angry Public, The Mutual Gains Approach to Resolving Disputes, published in 1996. Cases include Three Mile Island, Exxon Valdez spill, Hydro-Quebec, and others. The book is intended to develop principled leadership among corporate executives in dealing with environmental issues. It is practical, thoughtful, and hands-on.

Part V: In our last week, three capstone events conclude BATE:

  1. Rob Young, Executive Director of the New Jersey Office of Sustainable Business, will converse with us on what we have learned and what his office does.
  2. We conclude BATE by presenting oral reports, handing in our term projects, and assessing our learning experience.

Student Projects

The students will pursue major group project reports displayed in the format of a 3-hole binder containing an executive summary, table of contents, analysis of case studies, and research and bibliographic resources. Examples will be provided during the first week of the course. The topic chosen should reflect the theme of the course, such as the following options:

Grading Policies

Your final grade will be based on three grading instruments:

  1. A group project report on a topic consistent with the goals and substance of the course is required and counts as half your grade. Here is how the grading is broken down:
  2. Students will make oral presentations of course material, assigned in advance. The number of presentations depends on the final enrollment figures, but ample lead time will be provided. This activity counts as 30% of your grade.
  3. Participation counts as 30%. This includes coming to class prepared, actively joining in discussion, and overall group effort.

Contacting the Instructor

I am easy to contact:

I welcome your participation and look forward to Business and the Environment.

©Wayne Hayes, Ph.D.:ProfWork® profwork@yahoo.com
Business and the Environment, Summer, 2000
May 30, 2000 / Top