LT5078 Sustainability, Business and Responsibility Assignment 01 Brief | LMU

LT5078 Task

The assignment is individual.

Students are required to choose their own case study company [based on given criteria], and then advise the company’s sustainability managers on actions that will lead toward a more sustainable business model.

Case Study Criteria:

• A company with an up-to-date ESG materiality report (2022 and later) available in full [use Responsibility Reports to find it]. Please note that the generic info about the company’s sustainability approach and actions, as often found on websites, will not be sufficient.
• The company must be included in the database of MSCI ESG Ratings & Climate Search Tool [ESG Ratings Climate Search Tool] to ensure the availability of information on industry-specific materiality issues
• You can choose a company from the industry sector relevant to your degree or personal priorities. We recommend choosing a large, established company since it will be easier to apply to an established company than to a small one.

You will be guided through the criteria of case study choice in Week 4 and asked to submit the key information about your chosen case study in Week 6 (as a formative assignment task). Engagement with the formative task will provide you with early feedback and has proven to enhance overall performance. Please use the link in the Online Submissions folder titled A0 Case study choice to submit the proposal.

As the module is designed with your future employability in mind, the assignment focuses on consultancy and applying knowledge. It takes the form of a consultancy report.

The final report asks you to present the chosen company and its sustainability-related impacts, e.g. what is the company’s ESG Risk Score, and what does it say about its position? Next, you need to use a materiality map and critically assess claims that the company made in its ESG report. Are these justified and evidenced? Is the level of actions taken suitable? Do the actions described in the ESG report address the key issues, or maybe just the easiest ones, or those that show the quickest results?

To verify your company’s sustainability position within other businesses in the sector, you will use the Industry Materiality map. These allow you to identify key global material challenges prevalent in the sector. You need to discuss how those challenges directly impact your company. What threats and risks do these bring? - to operations, financial security, assets, human resources, branding, distribution chains, etc. Here, you can argue if the company has correctly identified material challenges in its ESG report, or maybe it has missed/diminished the value
of important ones?

Finally, based on all the information gathered so far, you will write a compelling business case addressed to the company’s sustainability manager, suggesting specific actions to incorporate sustainability further into the strategy. You need to offer relevant, convincing arguments that will illustrate how, and with what effect, new sustainable business models could be applied, e.g. what business opportunities the adoption of circular design can bring?

Assignment template:

You must use the template when writing your assignment. This is to ensure that you include all required elements [assigned with points in the marking scheme].

You must use module materials, especially indexes and external sustainability assessment databases from the seminars, as a minimum. Other suggested sources of information include Global Data [Global Data], Statista or FAME for the case study presentation section, and Google News search engine [news.google.com] for media reports related to sustainable issues in your case study. You are expected to reference the theory that you draw on to complete the assignment. You are also expected to carry out your research to enable you to consider multiple perspectives, identify important patterns, and substantiate your arguments by citing reputable sources.

You are required to illustrate your report with evidence of your research in the form of figures, including the two materiality maps as a minimum (the template has dedicated space for these).

Harvard referencing standards must be applied throughout, including complete in-text citations and the final bibliography.

LT5078 Learning Outcome

• To demonstrate an understanding of business development within the context of sustainability and apply analytical tools to assess the extent to which businesses have achieved sustainability.