Teacher(s)
Language
English
Prerequisites
None
Main themes
Throughout the course, students will engage with a broad and integrated set of themes that reflect the complexity, urgency and technical depth of sustainability challenges in business systems:
- Systems modeling and feedback analysis: Students will learn to model complex adaptive systems using causal loop diagrams, feedback structures, and resilience principles. Emphasis is placed on identifying leverage points, understanding system delays, and anticipating unintended consequences in business ecosystems.
- Circular and functional economies: Exploration of economic models that reduce material throughput and promote resource efficiency. Students will analyze how businesses can shift from product ownership to service-based models, and how circular design principles can be embedded in operations and supply chains.
- Impact measurement: Development and application of performance indicators that go beyond traditional financial metrics, including planetary boundaries, well-being indicators, and full value chain impact assessments. Students will use tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and social/environmental impact analysis.
- Decentralized Governance and Open Innovation: Examination of alternative organizational structures such as platform cooperatives, blockchain-enabled governance, and open-source production. These models challenge conventional hierarchies and offer new possibilities for transparency, collaboration, and distributed decision-making.
- Technical Design of Sustainable Business Processes: Integration of engineering principles into the design of business interventions. Students will prototype and simulate sustainable processes, evaluate trade-offs, and optimize systems for resilience and regeneration using systems dynamics and technical modeling tools.
Learning outcomes
At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to : | |
1. Corporate Citizenship
|
|
Content
This course examines how businesses can become catalysts for systemic sustainability transformations by leveraging systems modelling, technical innovation, and advanced impact measurement - not as add-ons to strategy, but as its foundations: how do you quantify a system's behaviour? How do you design a circular process from scratch? How do you measure impact across a full value chain? How do you use systems dynamics to anticipate unintended consequences before they occur?
Designed for students with a strong analytical and engineering background, the course emphasizes the design of interventions that address root causes of socio-environmental challenges through a systems lens.
Students will explore how organizations are embedded within complex adaptive systems and how business decisions interact with ecological, social, and economic dynamics. They will learn to apply systems thinking tools to diagnose system behavior, identify leverage points, and model feedback loops and unintended consequences. The course also introduces resilience theory and adaptive cycles to understand how systems evolve and respond to change.
In the second part, students will investigate how business models can be redesigned to support circularity, functionality, and regeneration. They will analyze the limitations of traditional value capture models and explore alternatives that decouple growth from material throughput. Emphasis is placed on developing and applying new performance indicators - such as planetary boundaries, well-being metrics, and regenerative KPIs -across the full value chain.
The course then turns to organizational innovation, examining decentralized and collaborative models such as platform cooperatives, open-source production, and blockchain-enabled governance. Students will assess how these models challenge conventional business structures and offer new pathways for transparency, participation, and sustainability.
Finally, students will work on cases to develop technically grounded solutions, simulate system responses, and evaluate trade-offs between environmental, social, and economic outcomes.
Designed for students with a strong analytical and engineering background, the course emphasizes the design of interventions that address root causes of socio-environmental challenges through a systems lens.
Students will explore how organizations are embedded within complex adaptive systems and how business decisions interact with ecological, social, and economic dynamics. They will learn to apply systems thinking tools to diagnose system behavior, identify leverage points, and model feedback loops and unintended consequences. The course also introduces resilience theory and adaptive cycles to understand how systems evolve and respond to change.
In the second part, students will investigate how business models can be redesigned to support circularity, functionality, and regeneration. They will analyze the limitations of traditional value capture models and explore alternatives that decouple growth from material throughput. Emphasis is placed on developing and applying new performance indicators - such as planetary boundaries, well-being metrics, and regenerative KPIs -across the full value chain.
The course then turns to organizational innovation, examining decentralized and collaborative models such as platform cooperatives, open-source production, and blockchain-enabled governance. Students will assess how these models challenge conventional business structures and offer new pathways for transparency, participation, and sustainability.
Finally, students will work on cases to develop technically grounded solutions, simulate system responses, and evaluate trade-offs between environmental, social, and economic outcomes.
Teaching methods
The course combines interactive lectures, readings and videos, hands-on practical sessions, case studies, role-plays and simulations, and individual/group coaching. It culminates in a group project: the collaborative design of a systemic intervention for a fictional company.
Evaluation methods
50% — Individual written exam including multiple choice questions and open question(s)
50% — Oral presentation of a group work (by 5 students)
50% — Oral presentation of a group work (by 5 students)
- 20% for the mid-term assignment
- 30% for the final presentation
- Failed the individual exam only: the resit consists of the individual exam alone (oral or written depending on the number of students).
- Failed the group work only: the resit consists of a timed (90 minutes) in-class essay on a theme related to the group project.
- Failed both the individual exam and the group work: the resit consists of both parts - the individual exam and the essay.
Online resources
All resources (video, texts, readings, slides, cases) will be available on Moodle.
Bibliography
The course relies on a set of readings and other pedagogical material available to registered students through the Moodle website of the course.
Faculty or entity
Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)
Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Learning outcomes
Master [120] : Business Engineering
