Corporate Finance and Society

Course goals

Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student is able to:

• Understand and evaluate the relation(s) between environmental, social and economic factors and corporate value drivers;
• Apply corporate (investment) valuations while considering environmental and societal issues facing firms;
• Understand the difference between an economic-value and an integrated-value perspective to corporate finance;
• Analyze financing instruments that promote firms’ commitment to sustainability targets such as green and sustainability-linked debt;  
• Understand financing issues for (sustainable) businesses in different phases of the company lifecycle.

Content

Departing from standard corporate finance courses this course explores interdependencies and interactions between corporate finance, sustainability, and society, and how this affects the value, financing and investment decisions of corporations.  Sustainable finance in this context considers next to traditional financial capital allocations the wellbeing of society, stakeholders, and the environment (e.g., planetary boundaries), either by integrating these considerations in conventional financial analysis and valuation or by exploring a broader (integrated value) perspective that takes externalities (if possible ,through social/environmental performance measurement) into account. The course also covers alternative sources of finance, such as green and sustainability-linked debt, and financing issues that are typical for (sustainable) businesses that are earlier in their life cycle.

Format
(Guest) lectures and tutorials. Students will engage in learning through
(1) interactive sessions during scheduled classes,
(2) comprehensive reading prior to class,
(3) preparation and execution of exercises or case studies in tutorials.

Students of the master’s programme Sustainable Business and Innovation can contact Simona Negro (S.O.Negro@uu.nl) for enrollment in this course.

In case online access is required for this course and you are not in the position to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.