Organisations create various benefits and various costs for stakeholders. Some of these costs and benefits – which can be of a financial, social, or environmental nature - can be quantified in monetary terms while others cannot. Managers have a responsibility and accountability for these costs and benefits regardless of whether they can be measured in monetary terms.
To manage an organisation sustainably, the significant costs and benefits generated by an organisation need to be measured, monitored, and managed. Society generally, and different groups of stakeholders specifically, expect an organisation to accept responsibility for the ‘costs’ it generates. Failure to manage various sustainability-related costs can have implications for the survival of an organisation. Among the many expectations of managers, an ever-increasing expectation is that managers will actively attempt to mitigate their contribution to climate change,
Employer groups, professional accounting bodies and course advisory committees have consistently highlighted the need for business students to be critical thinkers; be able to demonstrate skills that extend beyond technical competencies; and to be able to demonstrate an understanding that organisations are part of a broader social system on which they rely for organisational survival. This unit responds to this expectation, as it focusses on graduate self-awareness and applied technical and professional ‘soft’ skills in the following key areas:
• Provides insight into identifying the range of resources used by an organisation (including the use of so called’ free goods’), and the costs the organisation creates (both private and public costs) in doing so.
• Emphasises the importance of considering the lifecycle of an organisation’s goods and services.
• Explores the motivations driving managers to report sustainability-related performance information
• Explores the role and usefulness of various sustainability-related reporting frameworks
• Discusses the global problem of climate change and the responsibilities and role of managers in addressing it.