It’s an acronym that is sweeping the business world – and yet, for many, it is misunderstood. ESG, or Environmental, Social and Governance, has become the unifying lens with which people evaluate companies’ efforts to do more than just make a financial profit.
Building on the Wharton School’s latest Tarnopol Lecture Series hosted by Wharton Dean Erika James and featuring guests discussing challenging issues facing our world today, Wharton Global Youth Program has launched its latest series of Explore Business mini-sites for high school students, focusing on ESG.
The first of these ESG mini-sites – ESG: Tackling the Climate Crisis – is now available for free to high school educators and their students on the Wharton Global Youth Program website. In this discussion, Dean James joins a panel of industry and academic experts to address the environmental component of ESG. How can companies and policymakers drive impact around climate change and how should companies evaluate their environmental footprints?
“There are dire reports by the United Nations and others that a rise in severe weather events worldwide has put climate change on everyone’s radar screen…What is the role that business should play?” -Erika James, Dean of the Wharton School
Mini-site activities connect to the featured ESG: Tackling the Climate Crisis video discussion and provide opportunities for high school students to Explore Business. Educators and students have access to the full hour-long video discussion, seven shorter video segments that break the discussion into explorable themes, linked guided-question worksheets to help direct students’ understanding of the shorter video segments, defined vocabulary terms, a teacher guide, and a choice board with activities to inspire students to think creatively about ESG and climate change and discover how this topic is relevant to their own lives.
In the next several weeks, we will be publishing two additional ESG mini-sites exploring the following themes: “Redefining Corporate Governance” and “Humanizing ESG.” Stay tuned to the “For Educators” tab at the top of the Wharton Global Youth Program homepage, the Explore Business page, and to our monthly newsletter for all the details.
Our first three mini-sites launched in 2020 feature comprehensive classroom resources for discussing the Business of Race. We encourage high school educators and students to dig into these rich learning opportunities that introduce and explain the most current business trends with the help of Wharton-powered insights and tools. A recent post for The Essential Educator, our blog written by educators for educators, shows how one teacher incorporated The Business of Race mini-sites into his classroom.
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