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The holistic approach of the Mannheim Master in Sustainability and Impact Management guarantees that impact management will become an integral element of all operational areas of the company.
We have devised a program structure and course contents that will provide impactful learning.
Participants become proficient in essential management skills with a specific focus on challenges of the future like sustainable impact management in an increasingly digitalized environment. Insights into current best practices from various companies and industries as well as personal skills courses round off the program.
The Mannheim Master in Sustainability and Impact Management is organized in modules that build on each other over a period of 24 months. This allows you to retain full-time employment throughout the program and apply your newly acquired knowledge directly at your workplace. (Click to enlarge the chart)
The Business Fundamentals segments are an integral part of the program. They will effectively guarantee that:
They moreover provide basic knowledge for later more specialized courses.
Working in a team with your fellow students, you will apply the knowledge and methodologies acquired throughout your studies in a hands-on project for one of our partner companies.
Essential program elements such as the Sustainability and Impact Management Master Project require that you work with classmates in heterogeneous teams, just as you would at your workplace. Personal skills courses (e.g. presentation skills, agile methods, etc.) foster the necessary key qualities you need for management positions.
The program includes regular workshops where participants can take a deep dive into current topics and practical challenges. These events further provide room for networking and exchange of knowledge. Over and above individual learning, we aim to create a community that fosters peer learning.
Make an impact. Please find a detailed description of exemplary courses of the Mannheimer Master in Sustainability and Impact Management below.
To become sustainable, companies need to make changes not only in their own operations, but also across their vast supply chains. Many sustainability issues are more pressing in the supply chain than in a company’s own operations; for example, the majority of greenhouse gas emissions occur in the upstream supply chain. However, unlike their own operations, companies cannot directly control the sustainability performance of their supply chain. In most organizations, it is the responsibility of Procurement to manage and improve the sustainability performance of the entire supply chain. The objective of this course is to understand the critical role that Procurement and the upstream supply chain play in enhancing the sustainability performance of the company, to outline levers to improve sustainability along the supply chain, and to critically reflect on the obstacles that Procurement and their organizations face in pulling these levers.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Supply chain management is concerned with all activities aimed at satisfying customer demand. It is paramount to the creation of business value. The last decades have seen an increased environmental and social pressure on companies towards a more sustainability-conscious behavior. Therefore, sustainable supply chain management has become key to a company’s future success. However, due to the global, connected, and interdependent nature of today’s supply chains, the path towards more sustainability is challenging for many companies. This course will illustrate the various challenges and provide insights into concepts to support the transition towards sustainability in supply chain management.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Over the recent year, the traditional distinction between for profit and non-profit organization has been shifted to allow for a new variety of organizations in between. Specifically, social entrepreneurs have increasingly set out to use market-based business models to solve social or environmental issues and make a positive impact. Further, social intrapreneurs are increasingly contributing to the sustainability transformation of large organizations with some companies even setting up structured programs to support them.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Sustainability communication can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, stakeholders want to be informed about an organizations‘ impacts. On the other hand, talking too much about one‘s own sustainability achievements may lead to perceptions of greenwashing and trigger stakeholders‘ skepticism. Further, new communication pathways, e.g., via social media offer avenues for two way communication and dialogue which so far, remains underexplored by many organizations.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
The European Action Plan for Financing Sustainable Growth, or Sustainable Finance Action Plan, focuses on the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) fields of activity in order to achieve sustainability goals together with the financial sector.
This is also accompanied by binding legal requirements for companies. The EU taxonomy, for example, represents a uniform classification system for sustainable economic activities and investments for six defined environmental objectives.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Making an organization more sustainable oftentimes means introducing change to the organization which may lead to resistance. Such change processes have to be carefully designed and managed to be effective and managers need to have a clear understanding of stakeholder attitudes and organizational dynamics.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Markets are key drivers of sustainability and an increasing consumer demand for sustainable products has led to mainstream retailers including sustainable products into their portfolios. At the same time, in many industries, what consumers report in surveys with regards to their sustainability attitudes differs greatly from what they really do at the checkout (referred to as the consumer paradox). Companies for instance frequently complain about a lack of willingness-to-pay for sustainable products. Understanding market dynamics and consumer demand are thus urgently needed skills to steer towards sustainability.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
We are facing immense challenges – all summarized in the SDGs. To address these issues, we need: Clear values, innovation and capital. Therefore, we the finance sector has to change to be an essential part towards the solutions.
The objects for this course are...
The energy landscape has been undergoing a dramatic change over the past years and will continue to do so. The transition from a fossil-fuel based power generation towards a zero-carbon emission one will require massive investments into the energy infrastructure.
Renewable energy technologies like wind power and solar power will be the dominating power generation technologies – combined with energy storage technologies. We will see both large central power generation installations (e.g. large wind or solar farms), but also decentral power generation (e.g. roof-top solar) in combination with increased electrified local consumption (e.g. heat-pumps, e-cars), so-called distributed energy applications.
The course is designed to provide the students with the basic underlying concepts as well as with multiple examples on how companies take this into action incl. the implications on the overall so-called energy transition within countries/regions.
The course is designed to provide the students with a well-balanced mixture of conceptual work and multiple real-life experiences on how new energy technologies are being applied within a business and broader political/ecosystem context.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Water technology is one key point of environmental engineering and therefore a key part of our future. Due to the environmental pollution, the climate change or our increasing world population, challenges in water related topics as water supply are increasing.
The main facets of water technology that we will explore with you are: water quality, water pollution, water and wastewater treatment as well as water as energy
We will talk about the issue of mitigating climate change in relation to issues like droughts and flood protection, but a also water reuse and resource recovery.
Next to industrial wastewater treatment and sea water desalination, we will also cover the topic of humanitarian engineering and will discuss topics as rainwater harvesting and resources-oriented sanitation. Within the seminar we will also discover the various aspects of water conflicts.
The objects for his course are...
The course is structured around climate change and decarbonization challenges and opportunities in a corporate context. This involves an introduction to climate change and carbon regulation. Furthermore, it involves corporate decarbonization efforts and a review of recent developments in practice with a focus on emerging climate technologies.
The objectives are threefold:
Our society is currently using more resources than our planet can regenerate every year – keeping in mind that the resources we can utilize are not infinite, it is clear that we all cannot continue in the typical “make-use-waste” approach. Circular economy is supposed to be one of the major levers to transform both our society as well as the underlying businesses into a more resource efficient ecosystem.
The circular economy covers basically all kinds of resources, which can be raw materials, but also energy and water. The management of waste streams is an important element of the circular economy, but the circularity concept is much more comprehensive. The course is designed to provide the students with the basic underlying concepts as well as with multiple examples on how companies take this into action.
The course is designed to provide the students with a well-balanced mixture of conceptual work and multiple real-life experiences on how the circular economy is being applied within a business context.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Mitigating climate change and transforming the economy towards environmental sustainability are major challenges of the current as well as future generations. Companies are required to contribute to that transformation and are facing new reporting requirements on the sustainability of their business activities.
The course Non-Financial Performance Evaluation & Reporting introduces participants to the most recent and fundamental non-financial disclosure requirements in the European Union, i.e. the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Taxonomy regulation.
Course participants will learn the fundamentals of the relevant legislative procedure in the European Union. The resulting disclosure obligations and the associated challenges for companies are presented. Practical problems are presented, and solution approaches developed with course participants.
In this course, participants learn the core non-financial reporting requirements that European companies are facing, challenges on businesses subject to these obligations and smart solution approaches.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants will...
The course aims at preparing participants to meet state-of-the-art reporting requirements while taking business needs and future-proof implementation into account.
The course provides an introduction into economic concepts of environmental regulations. Why can the regulation of certain economic activities be beneficial and necessary in a market economy? Which crucial role do institutions and property rights have in order to overcome the so-called “Tragedy of the Commons”? How can the efficacy and efficiency of regulatory interventions such as bans, standards, carbon markets, environmental taxes and disclosure regulations be assessed?
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Following the „what can‘t be measured can‘t be managed“ logic, organizations have increasingly introduced scientific methods of impact measurement to make their sustainability-related impacts transparent and comparable. Some organizations have further started to assign monetary values to these impacts. This practice is referred to as valuation.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Environment-Social-Governance – Governance is one of the three key pillars of sustainable business and the key to realizing positive impacts on people and planet. Various organizations have redesigned their governance to not only ensure responsible business practices, but also to incentivize and thereby shape the sustainability transformation.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
In the management of sustainability, accounting plays a crucial role to enable decision makers to include sustainability impacts into their decision making. Many organizations are this redesigning their accounting systems to include sustainability-related information. Further, over the last years, the public awareness of tax evasion practices has continuously increased. While these practices may be legal, a strong social norm is emerging that views avoiding tax payments as socially irresponsible. Instead of making large donations, many argue, companies should start by paying their taxes.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
Empirical data demonstrates that the climate is changing and that these changes could produce increasingly serious consequences in the near and further future. This course explores the legal framework in which climate change mitigation and adaptation actions occur while also touching upon the field of nature and biodiversity in policymaking. It hereby lays a focus on the policy tools available to and used by regulators on an international, European, federal, state and municipal level. We will briefly also discuss the instrument of strategic litigation against states and corporations as a tool to incentivize policy makers and corporations to take action.
Learning Goals – In this course, participants...
The central aim of this course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to become good strategists – whether in a large corporation, a mid-sized company, or an entrepreneurial startup. This course combines theoretical concepts and frameworks with clear practical application. It makes participants familiar with all aspects of the business strategy process, starting with goal setting and ending with strategy implementation, focusing especially on strategy analysis.
A key function of (modern) corporations is to create (financial) value for shareholders as well as for stakeholders. Understanding this value-creation process requires to capture the flow of information related to this value generation process as well as of the (financial) logics behind it. This course speaks to both dimensions: to the informational flow regarding this value generation process (financial accounting/reporting) as well as to the underlying logics of the financial of the value-creation mechanism (corporate finance). While financial reporting serves mainly to inform outsiders about the financials of the firm, corporate finance uses this information among other sources to allow to decide on the financial of projects of the firm and value them. At the same time, it proves to value the firm as a whole.
Decisions on project investments are driven by financial considerations, as are assessments on other long-term business decisions (e.g. company acquisitions, capital allocation in companies). The interaction with modern capital markets, which play a central role in the valuation of many different goods and assets, takes on a decisive function. This is true not only with regard to the raising of capital, but also in the valuation of assets. In this context, the course aims to provide a first insight and overview into the fascinating world of modern (corporate) finance, but also into the functioning of capital markets, while stressing the role of financial reporting and regulation for the communication between the owners of the firm (the shareholders) and the firm’s management.
Marketing Fundamentals is designed to introduce participants to key concepts, tools, and practice of marketing. Effective implementation of marketing concepts requires knowledge of key relationships between the 3 Cs - internal (company) and external (competitors and customers) environments. This course will especially address issues pertaining to marketing strategy, segmentation, targeting, and positioning and its implementation via specific marketing activities (i.e., product management with a focus on innovation, price management, brand and communication management).
Operations management is concerned with the design, planning, and control of the processes that create and deliver the firm’s products and services. As such, operations constitute one of the primary functions of a firm. Operations management must reconcile multiple conflicting objectives, notably cost and service. This course introduces concepts and methods that are useful in understanding the management of a firm’s operations. Important elements include capacity management, process design, and management of throughput times.
The course Business Analytics aims to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to analyze and make data-driven decisions related to sustainability and environmental issues. Throughout the course, students will work on hands-on assignments to apply the concepts they learn to real-world sustainability challenges and will enhance their analytical skills.
Topics covered in this course include:
All information is subject to approval by the university committees. Therefore, changes to study design and content as well as admission requirements are still possible.