Teaching module 4
Sustainability, Taxation and Strategic Decision Making
Overview
This teaching module examines how sustainability-related taxation, carbon pricing, environmental regulation and financial incentives can influence organisational costs and strategic investment decisions. Using a fictitious university real-estate case and a Matrix Game methodology, students assess alternative investment options, respond to policy shocks and adverse events, negotiate from different stakeholder perspectives, and evaluate the resulting sustainability decisions.
Introducing the topic
Program Schedule
- Identify stakeholders’ objectives, constraints, priorities and preferred university real estate option
- Assess maintaining, renovating, or replacing/consolidating university buildings; perform basic cost, carbon and incentive assessments
- Propose actions, negotiate with other stakeholders and justify their preferred decisions, as policy shocks related to carbon costs, government incentives, energy prices or other adverse events are introduced
- Present and justify final decisions and discuss implications for university sustainability policy
Learning Outcomes
Skills Developed:
- Identify and explain how sustainability-related taxation, carbon pricing, environmental regulation and financial incentives can affect organisational costs and investment decisions
- Assess and compare alternative university real-estate decisions under changing sustainability requirements and financial conditions
- Analyse policy shocks and adverse events and evaluate strategic trade-offs between financial sustainability, environmental objectives and stakeholder interests
- Develop and defend a stakeholder position through evidence-based argumentation and negotiations and evaluate their implications for university sustainability policy
Competencies Enhanced:
- Understanding how environmental, economic and social considerations interact in organisational decision-making
- Systems thinking through recognising interconnections between sustainability policy, taxation, university finances, real estate and stakeholder interests
- Understanding competing stakeholder interests, negotiating alternative positions and seeking feasible compromises
- Developing a group position and communicating and defending decisions through discussion, written reporting and presentation