Sustainable Management and Finance MSc

Core modules

• The Challenges and debates of sustainability and ESG

  The aim of this module is to equip you with a comprehensive understanding of the potential impact of climate change, poverty, inequality, and corruption in businesses and the responsibilities of modern businesses and other organizations to tackle them.  It will do so by building the knowledge and the critical thinking necessary to move beyond the current status quo and transform organizations. It will serve to set the scene of the challenges current organizations are facing to think collectively about and the potential solutions and opportunities.

  The module unpacks the key terms, origins, and evolution of the contemporary challenges and debates inherent to management of sustainability and ESG. It does so by inviting the sustainability and ESG experts at Bayes, and beyond, to present their research. These experts will present different perspectives to sustainability and ESG, which will help you to understand, articulate and contribute to the current debates on these issues.

  The module is primarily taught through the development of critical thinking and debate-based sessions. This method will be supplemented with the case method, readings and short lectures to help build a comprehensive view of the issues associated with sustainability and ESG, taking into consideration the expectations and challenges of a range stakeholders.

• Principles of Sustainable Finance

  This module will help you to analyse social, environmental and governance (ESG) issues, and the impact of these issues on financial risk, financial performance, and investment decisions. It offers essential resources you to work on sustainable finance, or responsible investment, as well as understand how environmental and social issues affect the financial world, and what financial market can enable green transition and the delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

  This module will introduce the basic theories, principles and tools of sustainable and green finance including green loans, green bonds, green equity capital markets and other green securities. It will also analyse the concept and trading practices of carbon emissions and carbon trading in systems such as EU ETS, UK ETS, Cap-and Trade Programme in Japan, etc.). This will be facilitated by showing in class real-life applications of carbon trading, in some cases, delivered by practitioners.

• Sustainable Management

  The aim of the module is to provide you with an overview of the current issues and prospects related to the expectations of society towards business, and with an understanding of the contemporary social and environmental issues in global business. This includes the understanding of ethics and good governance in decision-making, the complexities of supply chains and the importance of leadership in dealing with these issues.

  Working towards more sustainable business implies understanding the complexities of ethical and environmentally oriented decision-making, their implications for business strategies, operations and supply chains as well as understanding the importance of leadership for sustainability transitions. This module addresses these challenges by presenting 360-degree perspective on the key contemporary issues of managing sustainable business, exploring how expectations beyond financial returns are affecting everyday decision making in business operations and governance.

• Engagement, Communication and Governance

  The aim of this module is to equip you with a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of stakeholder engagement and governance of ESG, appropriate for the level of an MSc. It provides hands-on learning experience, allowing you to apply theoretical concepts to real life situations and incentivizes you to work as a team: you will work in small groups to complete your coursework.

  The module content is therefore structured around the foundation of sustainability and ESG management with the aim of providing a rounded understanding of the theories, principles, frameworks and tools of stakeholder engagement. It situates stakeholder engagement in key actors such as investors, activists and civil society, the general public, and governments and will analyse the best practices and challenges of engagement towards key environment, social and governance issues. It will analyse the role of governance and accountability in the development of the sustainability and ESG field.

  The module tackles the challenges of communication of the ESG commitments, goals and initiatives. It also analyses the problems of failed engagements, greenwashing, miscommunication, the political role of the firm and woke capitalism.

Core modules

• Metrics, Asset Management and Modelling in Responsible Investment

  This module aim is to provide you with an understanding of the structure and functioning of the asset management industry of ESG.  The module will make it possible for you to acquire an understanding of the principal objectives and constraints of asset management in the ESG field.

  The content of the module will include the main investment philosophy and processes applied to ESG and sustainable finance. It will also introduce you to portfolio risk analysis, search of alpha, market efficiency and styles taking into consideration ESG criteria. These tools will be based on an understanding of behavioural finance, performance analysis based on ESG criteria and global asset allocation.

• Accounting and Sustainable Governance

  This module provides strategic, technical, and applied understanding of accounting, accountability and governance processes essential to ethical business conduct and sustainable transition.

  This module will help you to understand external ESG pressures on organisations and the organisational tools and processes that can help managers be more proactive and effective in dealing with ESG and sustainability concerns.

• Business Strategies, Climate-tech, and Innovation

  The aim of the module is to explore how companies are responding to the need to define new strategies, provide new secure, affordable products while and engaging with its key stakeholders to minimising its environmental impacts and work towards the mitigation of climate change. It will do so by building the knowledge necessary to understand how businesses are transforming towards climate change reduction and adaptation. It will put special emphasis in the role that innovation and technology plays in this transformation.

  In this module, you will learn about the challenges of environmental and social wicked problems, such as climate change, and how business strategies and models must be transformed to deal with them. This module explains climate mitigation strategies. It also looks at the key innovations and technology developments of leading sectors in climate change and the necessary transformation of business models they are undertaking. The module involves working with cases to understand real examples and analyse its challenges and opportunities. It also involves working in projects to develop an innovative cleantech business proposition. Cleantech innovations are part of products and services which main goal is to avoid or diminish the adverse environmental effects of human activity. You will be guided through the stages that take a nascent idea and an untested team to the point where the team has a well-formed cleantech idea that can be pitched to an investor or sponsor.

• Applied Research Methods in ESG

  This module has both short-term and long-term educational aims. The short-term objective is preparing you to craft your final projects in the pursuit of an MSc degree, by providing the essential methodological tools necessary for conducting   the empirically-based projects The long-term objective is offering a set of analytical and methodological tools that will be fundamental to your future career, whatever research project based on empirical data you will be called to do in your future job.

  The module content covers the fundamentals of research methodology as well as the basic principles of research methods. The module is divided in two parts. In the first part, you will learn the fundamentals of research methodology, including: 1) how to select and craft research questions and working testable hypotheses; 2) how to do a literature review; 3) how to design a research project and how to choose between different research designs. In the second part, you will learn the basic principles of case study research designs and financial modelling. You will learn how to gather information through database research, which you will be able to use to support your learning, substantiate your arguments and make assessments about the nature of the evidence you are using. You will learn about the different models and methodologies which can be used in ESG research, including event studies, the difference in difference approach to causal inference and regression analysis with trees.

In your third term you'll work on a compulsory and supervised industry-led project alongside a choice of three elective modules.

• Industry project

  To train you to undertake individual research within the context of an industry-related problem or issue and to provide you with an opportunity to specialise in a contemporary business or finance topic related to your future career aspirations.

• Business Research project

  Any business needs key research and professional skills and, to be successful, any business needs methodologically sound and rigorous research. This module allows you to demonstrate, on an individual basis, your ability to integrate and apply concepts and techniques you have learned in an in-depth study of a topic of your choice, and to organise your findings in a report. All conducted within a given time limit.

  The aim of the module is to help you integrate your learning across a range of skills and in particular to enable you to demonstrate the results of your learning through the development of a final project; there is no single prescribed method.

Elective modules

• Sustainable Finance with ESG
• Emerging Global Risks
• Operational Risk Management
• Advanced Company Valuation
• Country and Geopolitical Risk Management
• Strategy Consulting Skills
• Storytelling for Business
• New Market Creation
• Sustainability in Real Estate
• Real Estate Portfolio and Fund Management
• Venturing for Social Impact – KENYA
• Shipping Risk Management
• Corporate Entrepreneurship
• FinTech - Financial Services in the Digital Age.

* The list of electives offered in a given year will be confirmed by February.