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Learner Reviews & Feedback for First Steps in Making the Business Case for Sustainability by University of Colorado System

4.7
stars
189 ratings

About the Course

The Business School at the University of Colorado Denver wants to help you become a change agent for sustainable business. We hope that with the skills and concepts you gain from this specialization that you will help your business reduce its social and environmental impact. Being a change agent is hard. It takes courage and passion and knowledge. To implement change also requires being able to make the case for that change in terms that people in your company or organization respond to and understand. After completing the specialization, you will be able to: * Discuss the threats and opportunities that major global trends such as climate change present to businesses; * Identify ways a company can improve its environmental and social performance; * Evaluate and compare companies’ sustainability activities and products; * Develop a business case for implementing sustainability investments; * Identify key criteria of green businesses and product design; * Be a change agent in your organization; * Understand emerging topics in sustainable business, including those in the public policy space. We're very excited about offering this MOOC specialization and hope it gives you the first step toward learning about and taking action to make the places you work and the products you buy more sustainable. Sustainable business changes daily with new products, innovations and ideas, so you will be important in keeping the class current. We look forward to learning from you as you take this green journey! ______...

Top reviews

RG

Jun 26, 2020

Interesting course, easy to follow with appropriate hands-on exercises (including some good tools for financial analysis). Thank you! Definitely enrolling for the whole specialisation!

TF

Feb 23, 2020

Enjoyed the course insights and assignments in this course although Finance is not one of my best subjects, I hope there is as much interest and challenge in the second course

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1 - 25 of 68 Reviews for First Steps in Making the Business Case for Sustainability

By Ágnes V

Mar 14, 2019

I think it is a great course for anybody, who is new to sustainability and wants to shift his/her career in this field. I have obtained a lot of useful insights, which were really mind-opening and opened up new ways of thinking. I particularly enjoyed the peer-reviewed assessments, because they provided good practical base for us to adopt what we have learnt. I am not very sure, however, that I like the system that we had to rely on fellow-learners to correct our assessments at pre-determined times. However, I would like to say thanks for everybody who contributed to the realization of this course, and by all means to the senior instructor, John Byrd.

By Natalia C

Sep 8, 2019

The course is both interesting and useful. The peer-graded assignment system rather tricky though.

By Blessing O

Apr 28, 2020

This was a very insightful course, ESG issues were simplified for a beginner like me. I have to commend the instructor John Byrd for his expertise. Thank you Coursera!

By Kristina K

Jan 13, 2020

The course is designed for beginners and has a lot of insightful information about how to start your first sustainability project. You might find it boring if you have already some experience in sustainability.

Additionally, the course contains several errors in the description of the assignments and some information is outdated which makes it difficult to complete the assignments. The tutors are slow in responses or do not give their feedback at all. Additionally, I found the B-Lab assessment is useless and it seems that it's just a promotion of BCorp.

It could be interesting to learn about it, but not to spend 45 minutes minimum on completing the questionnaire which nobody cares about. BCorp assessment should be a choice made by a company and not a compulsory test area.

These aspects made me decide not to continue the course series. I appreciate enormous work lecturers put into the program but encourage them to devote some time to it on a regular basis.

I hope my feedback will be helpful.

By Gerdi B

Jun 21, 2018

Great course, however I did not quiet get the fact that there are 4 courses in total to this specialization as I was confused by the mentioning of weeks and courses. Otherwise I would have started more courses simultaneously.

By Daniela M

Apr 25, 2020

I recommend this course because in a very effective way links sustainability and finance concept, leading you to develop a business case for implementing sustainability investments thanks to the peer-assignments. I’ve learned about B-lab that could be also very useful to understand the sustainability improvement areas for your company. Moreover, I think it’s very important understanding the externality concept, as market failure.

By Anna S

Nov 25, 2019

Thank you for the high quality course! I enjoyed every video and especially every assignment! Calculating and making analysis was a very practical training. I am happy that I was a student of the course!

I totally appreciate the efforts of the authors. Thanks!

By Luiza B

Aug 13, 2018

I am a sustainability professional and I learned a lot with this course! The instructors are awesome and the topics are very current.

By Paula O W

Nov 22, 2021

Great course and relevant for many!

By Nilofar S H

Dec 16, 2021

I come from a communications and marketing background with no prior experience in concepts of sustainability, business practice, and accounts. I am in the process of pivoting towards a career in sustainability and climate crisis management. This course is a deep dive into concepts of sustainability (from a planetary + business + citizen perspective of how we consume energy). It then moves on to showcase how businesses can become more successful if they incorporate sustainable energy practices across their vision/mission, operations, recruitment, and community impact areas. You do need about 1 - 1.5 hours everyday in order to watch the videos, read the additional articles, assess the information, and then apply the learnings in your assignment and quiz. The accounts/calculation and business assessment sections of the course were tough for someone like me with no background in math, finance, economics, however, the explanations and examples really helped understand these sections. In the end, the learning experience depends on how much you put into the course. There's not much in terms of community participation, so don't expect an active, engaged group of learners. This is a beginner's module in a 4-part course and I would recommend completing the rest of the modules as well. If you are looking to gain internship or entry level work in a company's sustainability department, doing the course will help you get familiar with all the right terminologies, concepts and ways of thinking about sustainability from a business owner's perspective and might get you brownie points at the interview.

By Greg F

May 9, 2022

Interesting material in the course itself, but much of the optional reading was from pretty old sources. Those articles could use a refresh. Thanks.

By Martin Z

May 14, 2018

Great course. A few errors, but still worth passing it

By Lisa F

Jun 1, 2022

The course content was okay. I would recommend looking at the rubric after you submit and modifying as needed, there are some that are incorrect/you might fail if you aren't careful to match the rubric. One had the wrong numbers (some were randomly rounded up while others weren't and some were wrong all together). In the last assignment it said to do A or B but the rubric marks both seperately and you need both sets of marks to pass.

By Agnieszka B

Mar 12, 2023

Good selection of topics to start, very motivating to continue with further courses, good practical assignments (though, B lab last assignment potentially too difficult for the first module);some quiz questions in the second and last quiz may not have right answers, however, overall the test well the common sense of sustainability thinking.

By Danielly M

Oct 31, 2022

The course was excellent! Very rich content, with important cases and insights, in addition to the practical activities being great, helping to fix the content studied in addition to stimulating critical thinking and creativity.

I am very satisfied with the course and very grateful to the tutors of this course.

By Teo P

Feb 22, 2021

Great introduction course. If you're a beginner it guides you through the relevant information and processes, if you have a good understanding of sustainability it acts to structure the information to be able to develop a structured approach to implementing the learnings in your own industry.

By Chiara B

May 5, 2020

This was a great introduction to the concept of corporate sustainability. I especially appreciated the financial analysis module, which is essential when introducing a new initiative. The course was very easy to follow, and very informative.

By Emmanuel L

Aug 16, 2021

The course is well done and explained. The exams are pretty easy and I think they are so to reinforce the learning. It seems to me that the angle is quite traditionals and business oriented and is not very progressive in my opinion.

By TING-FEN H

Oct 31, 2020

The best part is the well-designed assignments which makes you fully understand in practice! My profession is sustainable design and I still find it useful to supplement my financial knowledge and energy use calculation!

By Andre E

Nov 5, 2020

Really interesting course, exactly includes what i was hoping to learn. Leaves out all the non essential talk and focuses also on including analytics in the process and how to actually assess the problem in numbers.

By SIMRAN B

Mar 3, 2021

A very practical course. Exactly what I was looking for- sustainability thinking combined with basic financial analysis. The professor, John Byrd delivered the content in an engaging and well thought out manner.

By Gabriel A F G

Sep 21, 2020

Un curso realmente bueno. Me sorprende que tenga tan pocos inscritos. Este curso te enseña herramientas básicas/intermedias para llevar a la práctica (en las empresas) la sostenibilidad.

By Romaine G

Jun 27, 2020

Interesting course, easy to follow with appropriate hands-on exercises (including some good tools for financial analysis). Thank you! Definitely enrolling for the whole specialisation!

By Teresa F

Feb 24, 2020

Enjoyed the course insights and assignments in this course although Finance is not one of my best subjects, I hope there is as much interest and challenge in the second course

By Dhiraj K

Dec 23, 2022

Excellent start to Making the Business Case. I am driving the sustainability initiatives in my company

and the learning of this course will be great help. Thanks!