For this assignment, students shall evaluate a company’s sustainability performa

For this assignment, students shall evaluate a company’s sustainability performance and identify its sustainability strategy. This assignment, completed by all students individually, is a prelude to the final group project (Assignment 2) where students will provide consultant advice on how a small company (in the same industry as the company they are examining in this assignment) can succeed using an embedded and transformational strategy. With this goal in mind, this first assignment is meant to ensure that students are aware of the material social, ecological, and economic issues relevant to an industry, the existing sustainability performance of a company in the industry in response to those issues and those forces that make sustainability very difficult to adopt. Students will have the opportunity to indicate preferred industries and/or firms from the list below early in the course. When designing your report, take the role of an analyst tasked with conducting an assessment of the company’s sustainability performance. The audience reading the report would include consumers, shareholders, and other stakeholders..
Resources: The Bronfman library has put together a video to assist in your research for this assignment. The video can be found
here Links to an external site.
. Resources including, but not limited to, the company’s website, company CSR/sustainability reports (if available) and other publicly available information situated outside the company website will be key in your analysis. Make sure not to “parrot” reports, but rather synthesize this research into your own analysis. Here Links to an external site. is a good reading to support your analysis process.
Logistics: The first assignment is due by the beginning of Class 6 and must be submitted via Canvas. Students will be penalized three percentage points (out of 100) for every day that the assignment is late. The assignment should be single-spaced, no longer than 2000 words (not including references or visuals). Students are encouraged to use tables to summarize their analysis (e.g. summarize three institutional forces in a table) and use the text to highlight key points or takeaways in the tables. Do NOT put your name on the submission (both in the file and in the file name); identify yourself by Student ID number only to allow for blind grading. The grading rubric for this assignment can be found below.
insert company list here

Criteria Pts.
Social & Environmental Issues: Identify three material sustainability issues associated with the industry in which the assigned firm is situated. Provide evidence of and explain why these are particularly relevant and important in light of the tension between societal and business interests for this industry. Avoid highlighting conflicts that apply to all industries (e.g. the conflict between a business’s financial goals and the expectation that sustainable investment may carry costs), as these are not unique to your industry. 6 pts
Performance: Utilizing the four criteria, assess the performance of the assigned company in response to your three identified material issues. Identify the company’s sustainability strategy based on the analysis of their response to these issues and your understanding of the five sustainability strategies framework.
12 pts
Institutional Forces: Identify any cognitive, normative, and regulatory forces that explain why companies in the industry resort to a denial, defense or, at best, an isolated strategy in response to your three identified material issues. Specify how the company contributes to these forces (e.g. through the influence on government, marketing, setting industry standards, etc.). 9 pts
Report Presentation: Evaluated on the professionalism and quality of writing (e.g. grammar, sentence structure), referencing, and proper use of citations (any formal citation format is acceptable – APA, Chicago, etc.).
3 pts
Total 30 pts