• Course Introduction

        • Time: 45 hours
        • Free Certificate
        This is a graduate-level course. Businesses and societies are experiencing significant challenges in ensuring that stakeholders, which can include owners, employees, customers, suppliers, community members, peer organizations, and other interest groups, achieve and maintain well-being into the uncertain future. These challenges, which can be economic, environmental, and social, can also be seen as opportunities to achieve and maintain both internal and external success and satisfaction. Sustainability issues such as climate change, social equity, biodiversity preservation, and poverty elimination are becoming critical with time. Businesses and other societal groups need to continuously adopt and apply innovative approaches to effectively address these issues. Dematerialization, product stewardship, renewable energy generation, biomimicry, and circular economy are a few examples of how businesses are turning challenges into opportunities for future well-being. This course identifies a wide range of strategies and illustrates how businesses and other organizations can effectively implement sustainable innovation approaches.

        • Course Syllabus

          First, read the course syllabus. Then, enroll in the course by clicking "Enroll me". Click Unit 1 to read its introduction and learning outcomes. You will then see the learning materials and instructions on how to use them.

        • Unit 1: Definitions and Concepts

          What are innovation and sustainability, and how can they be effectively integrated? Innovation and sustainability are terms which have been used with increasing frequency in the last several decades and have become associated with multiple meanings. Innovation often implies something new or changed in products, services, ideas, or fields. Sustainability implies the opposite-- an entity or phenomenon that continues on an on-going basis. Recent combinations of the two concepts, however, have come to mean how organizations do, can, and should transform themselves to advance socio-economic and environmental quality improvement, with the goal of promoting wellbeing.

          Completing this unit should take you approximately 12 hours.

        • Unit 2: Sustainability Policies, Practices, and Leadership

          Innovation and sustainability initiatives can be found at multiple levels of governments and organizations, from global, regional, and local, and across industries and sectors. This unit explores the regulatory environment, sustainability frameworks, organizational leadership, and related policies and practices.

          Completing this unit should take you approximately 21 hours.

        • Unit 3: Integrating Entrepreneurship with Innovation and Sustainability

          Can entrepreneurship make the world a better place? Entrepreneurship means finding new ways to solve problems in the marketplace. Unfortunately, this short-sighted definition has contributed to many sustainability crises. Eco- and social entrepreneurs take the traditional approach to solving problems and integrate it with the progressive values of sustainability and the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit. Businesses and their stakeholders will have many sustainability challenges in the years ahead, and the main issue may be urgency and the pace of change. This unit explores the process of identifying innovative opportunities that can solve sustainability challenges.

          Completing this unit should take you approximately 12 hours.

        • Study Guide

          This study guide will help you get ready for the final exam. It discusses the key topics in each unit, walks through the learning outcomes, and lists important vocabulary. It is not meant to replace the course materials!

        • Course Feedback Survey

          Please take a few minutes to give us feedback about this course. We appreciate your feedback, whether you completed the whole course or even just a few resources. Your feedback will help us make our courses better, and we use your feedback each time we make updates to our courses.

          If you come across any urgent problems, email contact@saylor.org.

        • Final Exam

          Take this exam if you want to earn a free Course Completion Certificate.

          To receive a free Course Completion Certificate, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on this final exam. Your grade for the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt. Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate.