ACC/MAN 661: Corporate Sustainability Performance: Measurement, Assessment and Improvement

Contents
The success of a company’s sustainability strategy critically depends on its ability to monitor and evaluate sustainability performance. This course introduces the most important management tools to measure and assess sustainability performance, with a particular focus on decarbonization, waste and circular economy management, and life cycle assessment. Building on these sustainability performance metrics, the course will also focus on how to turn the insights from performance measurement into specific actions, for example, by discussing approaches to reduce carbon emissions and increase the circularity of the business model. Many business cases from different industries will illustrate the real-world impact of the lecture content, including cases study exercises and hands-on usage of leading management tools.

Learning outcomes
Students gain a comprehensive overview over the measurement of corporate sustainability performance and understand how to measure key metrics, especially in the fields of decarbonization, circularity, and life cycle assessment in general, but also specifically for a variety of industrial businesses. They develop an economic intuition for the real-world application of the metrics and become familiar with typical challenges in their implementation. They also understand how to interpret the indicators and are able to link their interpretation to suitable actions that lead to performance improvement.

Necessary prerequisites
- (from spring 2026: ACC 510 or ACC 520 or ACC 530 or ACC 540 or ACC 560 or ACC/TAX 570)

Recommended prerequisites
ACC 660, Bachelor-level knowledge of sustainability management and performance measurement

Examiner Performing lecturer

Jannis Bischof Dr. Holger Rubel