UWA Handbook 2025

Unit Overview

Description

Why does industry pollute so much? Can it pollute less? Does it want to? Businesses vary greatly, from the model firm leading in sustainable business practices to the heavy polluter that seems to go only for the quick buck. How can you explain such diversity? Is it just because some are 'good guys' and others 'bad guys', or is there more to it? This unit addresses these questions and asks: (1) Under what conditions will a business want to improve its management of the environment? (2) How can government and society effectively encourage businesses to want to do better? (3) What aspects of business managers' attitudes and behaviour do we need to understand to better know how they can improve their management of the environment?

This unit is organized into weekly topics that roughly correspond to the chapters of a core textbook, and each week contains three sessions. Topics include environmental externalities, stakeholder analysis, environmental accounting and reporting, environmental management systems and life-cycle-assessment, environmental investments, risk management and insurance, as well as eco-labelling and eco-certification. Each week, session 1 focuses on key concepts and an understanding of the issues based around key chapter readings. Session 2 is a lab session using Internet resources, where students search in small groups for information on a specific industry of their choice. This session also introduces them to some key online databases where they learn how to search for information quickly and efficiently. Session 3 focuses on behavioural aspects of business decision making in relation to environmental (mis)management. In this session, students are introduced to behavioural economics as well as to economic experiments, which are core tools in the study of economic behaviour. Students in this unit have various backgrounds: Science, Engineering, Business and also Arts (e.g. business ethics).

Credit

6 points

Offering
(see Timetable)

Availability	Location	Mode
Semester 1	UWA (Perth)	Face to face

Details for undergraduate courses

• Level 3 core unit in the Environmental Science and Management; Environmental Management major sequences
• Level 3 elective

Outcomes

Students are able to (1) critically analyse environmental management practices of private businesses; (2) use a variety of environmental management decision tools; (3) demonstrate understanding of key concepts and tools for analysing environmental management by business; (4) use powerful database search tools; and (5) demonstrate understanding of the principles for designing experiments to study key aspects of business behaviour.

Assessment

Indicative assessments in this unit are as follows: (1) project; (2) online quizzes; and (3) final examination. Further information is available in the unit outline.

Student may be offered supplementary assessment in this unit if they meet the eligibility criteria.

Unit Coordinator(s)

Associate Professor Steven Schilizzi

Unit rules

Prerequisites

Successful completion of

one Unit(s) ECON2224 Environmental Economics 2
or Unit(s) ECON2105 Rise of the Global Economy
or Unit(s) ECON2233 Microeconomics: Policy and Applications
or Unit(s) ECON2234 Macroeconomics: Policy and Applications
or Unit(s) ECON2245 Business Economics
or Unit(s) PLNG2203 Environmental Policy and Planning

Contact hours

lectures: 2 hours per week
tutorials: 1 hour per week

Texts

Lesourd, J-B. and Schilizzi, S. The Environment in Corporate Management: New Directions and Economic Insights: Edward Elgar Publishing 2001, 2003*

An additional reference book is:

Brueckner, M. The Business with the Environment: a Different Reader, 2nd edn: Cengage Learning 2011