COURSE
NUMBER:
MBA 292T.11
This course is dual-listed
with the Evening-Weekend MBA Program
COURSE
TITLE: Business
& Natural Resources - Sustainable Use of Ecosystems
UNITS
OF CREDIT: 1
unit
INSTRUCTOR: Omar
Romero-Hernandez
E-MAIL
ADDRESS: oromero@berkeley.edu
PREREQUISITE(S): None
CAREER
FIELD: Particularly
suited for those students with interest on embedding sustainability and natural
resources management into their marketing, finance or operations career.
CLASS
FORMAT:
A mixture of lectures, cases, and guest speakers. Content is enhance
with the preparation and discussion of business cases that advance the role
private companies, NGOs, and public organizations towards applicable,
action-oriented and sustainable business. We expect to reinforce the content
with guest speakers who would share unique perspectives in the field.
REQUIRED
READINGS:
Course materials distributed on bCourses
BASIS
FOR FINAL GRADE:
20%
Participation and attendance
30% Short Assignments: business
cases
35% Final project
15% Final individual essay
ABSTRACT
OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
This course is part of a combined collaboration between the Haas School of
Business and the College of Natural Resources.
Businesses are operating in an increasingly resource-constrained world. Water
shortages, land use restrictions, together with the long and
short term impacts of climate change will result in the need for
business managers to understand the immediate and long term risks from a
changing environmental reality. Those that fail to adapt will be at a
serious disadvantage. At the same time, there are clear opportunities to
improve the bottom line by considering natural resource issues on a daily basis.
Companies and other stakeholders that understand these imperatives will be able
to better navigate an increasingly complex world and the major environmental
risks it faces.
The course incorporates business and sustainability aspects into the field of
natural resource management. Using economic and ecological concepts
students are expected to learn tools, and use them to solve practical natural
resource management problems relevant to business, NGOs, and society at large.
The course concentrates in four thematic fields: Ecosystem Services,
Economic Valuation, Climate Change and Water. In particular, we will relate
these topics to a business context. Students are expected to complete
assignments distributed in class and based on real and relevant natural
resource management problems.
Taking this course will help students to support their decision
making process related to the use and conservation of natural resource
and the inextricable link to competitive advantage.
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH:
Omar Romero-Hernandez,
PhD., Faculty and Principal Researcher on Business and
Sustainability, Haas School of Business.
He has led various internationally awarded projects in the field of renewable
energy, sustainable business strategies and business processes – sponsors
include the United Nations, Ministry of the Environment, Industry consortiums,
the Stock Exchange and NGOs. In 2010 he was appointed national leader of
Mexico’s Business Summit task force on Economic Growth and Low Carbon
Emissions, which delivers recommendations to the President.
Omar is a Chemical Engineer with graduate studies in Economic Policy and
Government and a PhD in Process Economics and Environmental Impact from
Imperial College, London, UK. Prof. Romero-Hernandez was the recipient of
the 2010 Franz Edelman Award, the world’s most prestigious award on Operations
Research and Management Science.
Omar has worked for a diverse range of public and private organizations such as
Procter & Gamble, PEMEX (Oil & Gas), Accenture, and the Ministry for
the Environment and Natural Resources. In 2001, he was appointed as Professor
at ITAM, UC Berkeley Fulbright Professor in Haas (2009) and Energy Biosciences
Institute Researcher in 2010. Currently, he is a National Researcher, and
author of three books: Renewable Energy Technologies and Policies, Industry and
the Environment and Introduction to Engineering – An Industry perspective and
several international publications on engineering, business and sustainable
development.