Building sustainable supply chains (2235.YR.015663.1)

General information

Type:	OPT	Curs:	1	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	3 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 1	Valentina De Marchi	Sociedad, Política y Sostenibilidad	ENG

No pre-requisites

Despite environmental and social sustainability becoming mainstream concerns in the operations of companies worldwide, the pace of improvements is lagging the urgency linked to escalating climate change disruptions and social injustice. This is a particular threat considering that the supply chain is indeed where most emissions are produced and where violations of human rights are more likely to accrue. For example, emissions generated by the supply chain of a company (also called Scope 3 emissions) are on average 11.4 higher than those produced by the company itself (Scope 1 emissions), a percentage that gets even higher in industries such as electronics, automotive, food or fashion. However, very often managers are not aware about emissions along their supply chains or do not know how to manage them to ensure sustainability also outside of their gates. Indeed, it is a major challenge for managers to determine the correct decisions to effectively implement sustainability along their supply chain, including decisions regarding stakeholders collaborations. This course will support managerial decision-making by describing the functioning of supply chains and discuss instruments aiming at ensuring that all activities needed to realize firms' products or services can be effectively labeled sustainable.

The principal goal of this course is to equip you with the concepts, frameworks and tools needed to effectively manage the challenge of building a sustainable supply chain in your future career as CEO, top manager or supply chain specialists. At the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Seize the ethical, social and environmental challenges that firms working in a multinational environment need to address.
- Understand the local and global dimensions of sustainability challenges.
- Understand the functioning of global value chains, identifying powerful actors and leverage points to ensure sustainability.
- Learn approaches to integrate with stakeholders to ensure sustainability along the supply chain
- Understand the challenges and opportunities in the usage of standards and certifications in global value chains.
- Understand how to develop supply chains for sustainability in context of crises, i.e., humanitarian supply chains.

1. content In this course we are going to understand the challenges for firms to ensure sustainability along their supply chains, especially when working with several suppliers located throughout the world. You are going to understand the broader context in which the firm is active, i.e. the global value chain in which it is embedded and how this constrains its activities. You are going to learn what leverage points a firm has to cascade sustainability along its supply chains, discussing different forms of private governance. You are also going to understand the potentials and limits of audits, standards and collaborations, as complementary tools to ensure sustainability in supply chains, and you are going to learn how private and public governance interact in streamlining sustainability along their chain, also considering for the recent changes in EU legislation. You will also understand how sustainability concerns can be addressed through supply chains specifically designed for them, such as humanitarian logistics and circular supply chains. Thus, our goal will NOT be to learn how to develop a detailed technical solution in any of the particular areas described above, but rather to equip you with a general understanding so that as future managers you know what the relevant issues are, you are acquainted with the types of tools and best practices in use, and you can therefore interpret and integrate potential social and environmental challenges into your management practices.

This course is organized as a participative and reflective experience, weaving theory, living cases, assignments, guest speakers, and team projects. The central driver around which the course is designed is participation, meaning participating in class discussions, working with the group and contributing to the class through your individual work. The goal is threefold: (1) to enable everyone to develop capabilities on empirical analyses for sustainability; (2) to challenge participants to give the best of themselves; and (3) to look at issues from different angles and perspectives. Overall, we look for you to engage reflectively with the ideas, materials, and your classmates in a safe learning environment and to consider what the ideas and concepts discussed mean to you.

Group	Teacher	Department
Year 1	Valentina De Marchi	Sociedad, Política y Sostenibilidad