John Byrd
Senior Instructor
Why this course
Mainstream business can no longer ignore the effects of climate change; action is imperative if companies and the communities in which they operate are to endure. Professor Byrd’s course exposes market failures and their effect on the environment while emphasizing the opportunity for business to reshape the future
The course uses exercises to help students understand various climate related policies, how to set organizational carbon emissions targets and develop strategies to achieve sustainability goals
Course Highlights
Course objectives:
Discuss the business case for preparing for climate change
Introduce the predicted impacts of climate change as currently understood
Consider how carbon emissions are measured and assigned to countries
Consider policy responses (implemented and being discussed) to climate change
Learn how companies are implementing an internal carbon price
Learn the basics of computing and reporting their carbon footprint
Consider how to set a science-based carbon emissions reduction target
Develop a carbon/climate strategy for a company
Assignment from the Course:
Snowflake ski basin
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Biography
John Byrd is attached to the Finance and Managing for Sustainability programs at CU Denver's Business School. His research is primarily in the corporate governance and sustainability areas. Recent papers look at stranded fossil fuel assets and the effect of companies adopting internal carbon pricing. With colleague Ken Bettenhausen, John developed a four-course MOOC titled, Become a Sustainable Business Change Agent. Prior to graduate school and an academic career, he was a mountaineering guide, a river raft boatman and cut pulp wood. He and his wife Shere live in Durango, Colorado, where they get into the local mountains as often as they can. John tries to leave home as seldom as possible to begin to work off his large accumulated carbon footprint from travel and cutting trees.