THE
Erb Edge Partner With the Erb Institute to Advance Sustainability Action in Your Company
Our mission is to create a socially and environmentally sustainable world through the power of business. Founded in 1996, the Erb Institute is the University of Michigan’s businesssustainability partnership between the Ross School of Business and the School for Environment and Sustainability. We deliver on our mission through research, teaching and business engagement.
Your Competitive Edge At the Erb Institute, we work with companies to help them make better business decisions, drive change and create innovative sustainability solutions. We use the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to frame our work with companies aiming to bring together business and global stakeholders for climate action, social sustainability and economic growth. We partner with companies to help them realize business opportunity from the more than $12 trillion in market opportunities that analysts estimate the SDGs will create.
GAIN YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE THROUGH:
1. Research Partnerships 2. Executive Education 3. Conversations With Consequence
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Research Partnerships Collaboration is a critical part of making progress toward the SDGs. As an academic institute, we partner with companies to tailor research they can use in decision-making, in the form of real-world sustainability solutions and strategies. We create lasting collaborations with our company partners to turn thought leadership into practical action through Partnership Projects and Collaborative Research.
PARTNERSHIP PROJECTS
WORK WITH TOMORROW’S SUSTAINABILITY LEADERS Advance your sustainability agenda by working directly with the Erb Institute and our dual-degree MBA/MS students from a Top 10 MBA program, through a Partnership Project. These research projects deliver tailored assessments and strategies to help you meet your business objectives. We will match you with focused and engaged Erb Institute graduate students to tackle pressing business challenges and broader strategy questions. EXAMPLE PROJECT DELIVERABLES: • Sustainability and go-to-market strategies • Decision-making tools and frameworks • Stakeholder assessments
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH
WORK WITH LEADING BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY SCHOLARS Position your company as a thought leader in sustainability through Collaborative Research. These long-term partnerships deliver science for action through various platforms: science-based sustainability strategies that align with your business goals, workshops to build your company’s leadership capacity on the latest sustainability research, and tools to help you make better decisions for lasting impact. EXAMPLE RESEARCH DELIVERABLES: • Tailored sustainability toolboxes, including actionable, step-by-step guidance • Analyses of emerging sustainability issues to inform long-term strategy • Strategic assessments of current sustainability risks and opportunities at the enterprise and/or industry levels
PARTNER WITH ERB on Collaborative Research or Partnership Projects CONTACT MELISSA ZAKSEK, RESEARCH AND THOUGHT LEADERSHIP MANAGER, MZAKSEK@UMICH.EDU
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Executive Education Named a Top 10 executive education provider by the Financial Timesfor the fourth year in a row, Michigan Ross Executive Education provides transformational experiences that help companies realize their true capacity to innovate, collaborate, create and lead. In partnership with Ross, the Erb Institute offers a wide range of custom executive-education programs—from two-hour executive briefings, to two-week skills-development workshops, to months-long culture-change initiatives—to help companies build internal capacity and culture for sustainability strategy and execution.
CUSTOMIZE YOUR EXECUTIVE EDUCATION EXPERIENCE
DESIGNED TO MEET YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS One size does not fit all. Work with our leadership team to develop an executive education program tailored to your unique business challenges. Whether you’d like to focus on empowering “intrapreneurs” to spark innovation and lead change or equipping executives and managers with a road map to better align decisions with business objectives, we will work with you to define the faculty, sessions and materials that will best suit your needs. Our programs are implementation-friendly and results-oriented. They cover business and sustainability essentials like leadership, triple-bottom-line decision-making, stakeholder engagement, public policy, resilient business strategy, metrics, impact and reporting. SAMPLE SESSIONS: • Welcome to Your New Sustainability Portfolio: A Guide for Freshly Minted CSOs! • Triple-Bottom-Line Decision-Making for Sustainability Strategy and Action • Finding Business Value in the UN Sustainable Development Goals • Uncovering Stakeholders and Unlocking Value Through Engagement • Building Internal Culture for Sustainability • Passion, Purpose and Profit: Business Leadership in the 21st Century
PARTNER WITH ERB on Executive Education CONTACT JOE ÁRVAI, FACULTY DIRECTOR ERBINSTITUTE@UMICH.EDU
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Conversations With Consequence ERB HELPS YOUR CONVERSATIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCE. Many critical conversations about sustainability happen in a vacuum—and even worse, they never lead to management action. At the Erb Institute, we aim to broaden those conversations and then take the next step—toward consequential action. We work with companies to host collaborative workshops, roundtables, panels and conferences that are designed to generate action. We convene leaders from across sectors to delve into specific subject matter, empowering them to plan how they will integrate sustainability into their business models, industry strategies and cross-sector partnerships.
PARTNER WITH ERB to Convene a Conversation With Consequence CONTACT TERRY NELIDOV, MANAGING DIRECTOR TNELIDOV@UMICH.EDU
We work with leaders across sectors for sustainability action.
M E E T O U R F A C U LT Y
DR. JOE ÁRVAI
DR. ANDY HOFFMAN
DR. TOM LYON
Improving decision-making for the triple bottom line
Driving market transformation
Advancing corporate sustainability and transparency
Erb Institute Faculty Director Joe Árvai’s research focuses on how individuals and organizations can make better decisions in the name of advancing sustainability.
Andy Hoffman’s research prepares companies to drive the market shifts that are necessary for true progress on sustainability.
Tom Lyon’s research offers a critical but evidence-based perspective on the true outcomes of corporate sustainability efforts.
Hoffman’s work focuses on how the market needs to change to address global sustainability challenges. While “enterprise integration” is a business response to market shifts, “market transformation” describes a radical departure from existing models, in which businesses step up as the driving force behind these shifts toward new systems. Hoffman sees the role of culture as essential to understanding the divided beliefs on climate change. As the role of business expands, Hoffman explores how this expansion will influence society’s values and ethics.
Lyon’s work acknowledges that, while business has been “going green” in many commendable ways, sustainability progress has been incremental at best. To transform markets and realize large strides toward sustainability, new public policies will also be required. Lyon’s research shows how nonmarket strategies can help businesses align support for stronger public policy with their branding, sustainability strategy and ecolabeling strategy. He also explores how greater transparency can advance businesses’ sustainability strategies.
Árvai and his team study how people—including business leaders and policy makers—construct their judgments and decisions, particularly related to sustainability, and how these judgments and decisions can be improved or shifted in the direction of more sustainable outcomes. A unique facet of his team’s work is research and development on tools and resources designed to improve decision-making processes. His interdisciplinary research covers a wide range of topics, from human and environmental health to management decisions at the intersection of society, the environment and the economy.
DR. SARA SODERSTROM
Creating organizational change agents Sara Soderstrom’s research equips organizations to support change from within as they move toward sustainability. Certain networks help people enact change. Soderstrom’s research seeks to understand the types of interactions and engagement that encourage organizational change. She explores questions such as: What are the issues employees choose to engage on—or not? Within a company, how do people find and join forces with others who feel a similar drive to lead change? And how do they build these capacities, capabilities and partnerships for change? Soderstrom is particularly interested in these questions as they relate to diversity, equity and inclusion.
GAIN YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE Partner with the Erb Institute CONTACT US erbinstitute@umich.edu erb.umich.edu
Ross School of Business 701 Tappan Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234 School for Environment and Sustainability 440 Church Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1041
erb.umich.edu erbinstitute@umich.edu 734. 647. 9799
Regents of the University of Michigan Jordan B. Acker, Huntington Woods Michael J. Behm, Grand Blanc Mark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor Paul W. Brown, Ann Arbor Shauna Ryder Diggs, Grosse Pointe Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms Ron Weiser, Ann Arbor Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor Mark S. Schlissel, ex officio Š 2019 by the Regents of the University of Michigan Nondiscrimination Policy Statement The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/ Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Office for Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734. 763. 0235, TTY 734. 647. 1388, institutional.equity@umich.edu. For other University of Michigan information call 734. 764. 1817.