ESG: Navigating the Board's Role

This course opens on March 1st but participants do not need to start it on that date or any specific date. Designed for busy board members, this flexible course remains open from March 1 to May 7 and participants can complete the course (approximately 6 hours) on their own schedules.

Welcome to ESG: Navigating the Board’s Role, a course co-developed by UC Berkeley School of Law and Ceres.

ESG — environmental, social, and governance — is a rapidly growing and complex landscape. From diversity to supply-chain due diligence to reducing carbon emissions, ESG cuts across vastly different corporate functions. As this course will reveal, ESG is not a discrete set of issues, but a powerful process for managing risk and leveraging business advantage.

Investors and other key stakeholders recognize that ESG is a proxy for effective risk oversight, and there is increasing pressure on board members to focus on ESG issues. But given its breadth, how to do so remains opaque. This course answers that challenge, pinpointing how corporate board members, whose legal duties and strategic roles are very different from management, can embed ESG into board operations.

To ensure that we have tailored this course for corporate directors, we convened an advisory council, composed of corporate board members, investors, senior executives, legal advisors, and ESG experts. This introductory course, which is designed to be completed in six hours, incorporates their practical insights, the cutting-edge research of Berkeley Law faculty, and industry-leading reports published by Ceres.

Topics

This course is divided into the following six modules:

Engaging with investors on ESG
Building ESG competency and fluency on the board
Structuring board committees for ESG oversight
Aligning executive compensation with ESG performance
Identifying, assessing, and mitigating ESG risks
Disclosing ESG risks and opportunities

Course Design

Lectures

Each module begins with a lecture including theoretical underpinnings and practical insights from numerous experts including investors, board members, corporate executives, lawyers and judges, academics, and leading NGOs — to help contextualize how the board oversees ESG in practice.

Curated Readings

With articles being published each day, it is difficult to navigate the vast literature on ESG. For participants who want to delve deeper into each topic, this course offers a “venture further” section which includes:

Industry reports containing data on ESG trends and highlighting ESG risks and opportunities
Ground-breaking academic papers (which we have excerpted)
Opinion pieces and articles written by our expert guests
Media articles which show how ESG issues are being discussed and debated in the court of public opinion

These resources are optional and are not included in the six hour estimate for course completion.

Written Reflections

To provide participants with the opportunity to engage in the discussion and debate, we will assign brief, written reflections throughout the course.

To earn the certificate, participants are required to complete six reflections. They are optional for participants who don’t seek to earn the certificate.

Live Discussion Forums (Optional)

We will host three optional forums (via Zoom) to provide a platform to discuss and debate the materials, share best practices, and network with other members of the corporate director community. Ceres and Berkeley Law will co-moderate these forums.

Course Details

When and where? This online course will open on March 1, 2021, and remain available until May 7, 2021. Participants do not need to begin the course on March 1 or on any specific date. The course is designed to take approximately six hours of active work, and participants can move through the course at their own pace.
Who should participate? This course is designed specifically for current and aspiring corporate directors. For other professionals, Berkeley Law offers this course in Sustainable Capitalism and ESG.
Certificate requirements: Participants who complete all six modules and write at least six reflections will earn a Certificate in ESG: Navigating the Board’s Role from Berkeley Law Executive Education.
Tuition: $1250
Berkeley Law Alumni: $1000
Accessibility: For disability accommodation requests and information, please contact us at esg-directors@berkeley.edu. Please make your request upon registration.
Questions? Please contact esg-directors@berkeley.edu.

Register here!

Testimonials from current course participants:

“ESG: Navigating the Board’s Role” provides corporate directors with the Who, What, Where When and Why of E, S and G using an engaging and innovative instructional format. The virtual discussions with ESG experts and fellow course members were especially interesting and enlightening.” – Peggy Smyth, Board Member, Etsy

“With comprehensive content, engaging live class discussions, and thought-provoking writing assignments, this course is a must for all board members. The program is well organized and gives board members the essential toolbox for strategically considering ESG oversight responsibilities, risk assessment, and stakeholder value creation. Bravo!” – Lisa Bougie, Board Member, Eileen Fisher Inc, Cora, Boon Supply

“I highly recommend this course as it covers an array of ESG topics by providing substantive content and leveraging the perspectives of leaders in the field. The live discussion sessions allow directors to interact and share experiences on ESG matters.” – Celeste Clark, Board Member, Wells Fargo

“This course provides an excellent overview for all board members on the vocabulary and concepts that are increasingly critical for leading sustainable companies. Amelia and Veena offer thought leadership and inspire participants to consider both the risks and opportunities presented by broad ESG considerations.The group discussions were vibrant, and generated good ideas for deeper dives in future programs. Definitely a good investment of time for all board members.” – Steven G. Hoch, Partner, Brown Advisory Former Board Member, Nestle SA

“ESG: Navigating the Board’s Role deserves to be a prerequisite to assuming directorship. Extremely time-efficient, the course presents a concise panorama of today’s ESG imperatives. Ignoring the need to participate to the board’s ESG oversight is simply neglecting the directors’ fiduciary responsibility. In today’s world institutional investors, and public institutions are holding directors accountable to responsible oversight of ESG issues, and material risks. ESG also offers opportunities which, if left unaddressed, put the company at competitive disadvantage.” – Dominique Conseil, Director of the Ceres Board
Former President, Aveda

Course Convenors

Berkeley Law’s Business in Society Institute

Society’s expectations of companies are changing, and companies are responding. Many companies today go beyond legal compliance to implement policies in line with the values of their shareholders, employees, customers, and other stakeholders. An increasing number are engaging in activities that were traditionally conducted by governments and nonprofits. Navigating fiduciary duties and competing stakeholder interests raises a number of complex corporate governance questions. The Business in Society Institute’s mission is to help define this new articulation of corporate purpose. We conduct our mission by 1) preparing the next generation of leaders, 2) publishing thought leadership, and 3) collaborating with and designing executive education for corporate executives, board members, investors, corporate counsel, and NGOs.

As part of UC Berkeley, the world’s leading public university, supporting the private sector’s commitment to solving societal issues is core to our public mission. For more information about the Business in Society Institute please visit our website.

Amelia Miazad

Amelia Miazad founded and leads the Business in Society Institute at Berkeley Law.

Professor Miazad is widely recognized as an expert in ESG. She teaches courses at the intersection of sustainability, corporate governance, and compliance. Her recent publications explore sustainability and ESG as a process for overseeing risk and a powerful tool for transforming corporate culture. Professor Miazad’s curriculum and scholarship rely on input from experts who are implementing environmental and social considerations into their business practices. This pedagogical approach, which blends theory and practice, is reflected in the design of this course.

Her recent publications explore sustainability and ESG as a process for overseeing risk and a powerful tool for transforming corporate culture and include: The Hidden Power of Compliance (Minnesota Law Review, 2019), Sex, Power, and Corporate Governance (UC Davis Law Review, forthcoming, 2021), and Corporate Law and Social Risk (Vanderbilt Law Review, forthcoming, 2020).

Ceres

Ceres is a sustainability nonprofit organization working with the most influential investors and companies to build leadership and drive solutions throughout the economy. Through powerful networks and advocacy, Ceres tackles the world’s biggest sustainability challenges, including climate change, water scarcity and pollution, and inequitable workplaces. Our mission: Ceres is transforming the economy to build a sustainable future for people and the planet. For more information about Ceres’ work, please visit ceres.org.

Veena Ramani

Veena leads Ceres’ work on critical market levers that will help scale the transition to sustainable capital markets. This includes governance systems that companies should put in place at the corporate board level to allow for effective board oversight of sustainability and ESG risks. She also oversees Ceres’ work to engage financial regulators on climate change as a systemic risk, under the umbrella of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets.

Veena has authored and co-authored a number of industry-leading reports on board governance of ESG and sustainability including View from the top: How corporate boards can engage on sustainability performance (2015), Lead from the top: Building sustainability competence on corporate boards (2017), Systems Rule: How board governance can drive sustainability performance (2018), Getting Climate Smart: A primer for corporate directors in a changing environment (2018) and Running the Risk: How Corporate Boards Can Oversee Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Issues (2019).

Veena has been featured in a number of corporate governance publications including in the Cover Story of the 2017 Fall Edition of C Suite Magazine. Her work has been featured by NACD, Corporate Secretary, Pensions and Investment, CQ Roll Call, Marketwatch, Ethical Boardroom, GreenBiz, Huffington Post, Environmental Leader and Responsible Investor.

This course was made possible, in part, through support from The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. We are grateful for their support.