LEARNING OUTCOMES
In the How to change the world: Innovating toward sustainability course students focus on learning how complex sustainability challenges can be tackled with creative and entrepreneurial mindset. The point of departure of the course is the observation that the current financial system and business models are predominantly incompatible with the environmental carrying capacity and unable to enhance socio-economically just futures. In the course we work with global environmental and social sustainability problems and their potential solutions. Wicked global sustainability challenges such as climate change, depletion of natural resources and poverty are treated as starting points for innovation of new forms of economic activity, business models, and organizational forms.
Through lectures, exercises, team project and practitioner visits the students gain understanding of wicked sustainability problems: what they are, how they can be approached, and why it is important to tackle them. More importantly, the course aims at exploring alternative paths for creative and innovative responses to sustainability challenges. The emphasis will be on entrepreneurial solutions within the business sector, but we put emphasis on collaboration with other actors such as non-governmental organizations and the public in the pursuit of systemic solutions.
The students learn and explore how to approach these vast challenges with realistic and plausible strategies and actions on a grass-root level. The course addresses sustainability innovation from following main perspectives: sustainable business models, inclusive business for poverty alleviation and various forms of entrepreneurship for sustainability ventures. We employ a variety of interactive working methods, which encourage the students to explore and reflect upon their own thinking patterns through happiness and sustainability diaries and develop new ideas in a collaborative manner.
Credits: 6
Schedule: 25.02.2025 - 03.04.2025
Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):
Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Jukka Rintamäki
Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation):
CEFR level (valid for whole curriculum period):
Language of instruction and studies (applies in this implementation):
Teaching language: English. Languages of study attainment: English
CONTENT, ASSESSMENT AND WORKLOAD
Content
valid for whole curriculum period:
The concept of wicked problems & knowledge about attainable approaches for addressing wicked sustainability problems - Concept of planetary boundaries and implications of planetary boundaries to human society and economy - Business model concept and literature on business models for sustainability ventures - Inclusive business (in the context of low-income emerging markets) and its opportunities and limits for poverty alleviation - Eco-innovation - Frugal innovation as a form of innovating in resource-scarce environments - The concept and practice of sustainability entrepreneurship - The concept of intrapreneurship - Intrapreneurial tactics for sustainability work in the context of large organizations
Assessment Methods and Criteria
valid for whole curriculum period:
Active participation during contact teaching sessions
Assignments
Workload
valid for whole curriculum period:
Contact teaching
Team work
Independent work
DETAILS
Study Material
valid for whole curriculum period:
Elkington, Pamela Hartigan (2008) Power of unreasonable people: how social entrepreneurs create markets that change the world / ISBN 9781422104064;
Weimann, J.; Knabe, A.; Schöb, R. (2015) Measuring Happiness the economics of well-being. The MIT Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-3-7910-31941.
Wilkinson, R. Pickett, K. (2009) The spirit level: Why equality if better for everyone. ISBN: 978-0-141-03236-8.;
Jackson, T. (2009) Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet. ISBN: 978-1-84407-894-3
Grant, A. (2016) Originals: How non-conformists move the world. NY: Penguin Books. ISBN 987-0-525 42956-2
Articles designated in the syllabus
Substitutes for Courses
valid for whole curriculum period:
Prerequisites
valid for whole curriculum period:
FURTHER INFORMATION
Further Information
valid for whole curriculum period:
Teaching Language: English
Teaching Period: 2024-2025 IV
2025-2026 Spring IVRegistration:
Students are admitted to the course in the following priority order 1) Creative Sustainability students, 2) CEMS students / BIZ exchange students, 3) Other Aalto students. This course is open only for Master's level students. Maximum 50 students