Building Sustainable Enterprise in India: Leadership and Practice

Meet your cohort and the facilitator who will support you throughout the programme. Get oriented to the course structure, timelines and how to navigate the platform. Introduce yourself by sharing your role, goals and the Indian context you are working in. Join the first live session with Oxford expert faculty focused on why this programme matters for India and why India is pivotal to the global sustainability transition.

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Define core terms and concepts for net zero and the SDGs in the Indian policy and market context
• Apply these ideas with confidence in practical tasks and early decisions
• Recognise and navigate tensions between interests, actors and geographies in India and their links to global goals
• Reflect on and clarify your personal and organisational motivations for sustainability leadership in India

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Explain how thinking on enterprise and the environment has evolved through key historical events and tipping points
• Evaluate past corporate responses to social and environmental issues and analyse why many fall short of today’s challenges
• Account for the significance of social and environmental irresponsibility to business, including legal, financial and reputational risk
• Assess how robust different approaches are for achieving business sustainability and judge where each is most effective

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Define net zero, explain its scientific basis and describe how ecological, social and economic systems interact in the Indian context
• Explain how the energy system is changing in the low-carbon transition across power, industry, transport and buildings
• Use the essentials of systems thinking to analyse complex sustainability challenges in Indian sectors and states
• Identify credible pathways to net zero in India and the roles of policy, markets, finance, behaviour and technology in delivering them

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Define Planetary Boundaries and outline its key features and limits
• Explain how the SDGs, net zero and enterprise performance connect in the Indian context
• Identify the SDGs most material to your organisation and outline practical strategies to address them

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Explain how financial markets can be both a cause of unsustainable development and greenhouse gas emissions and also part of the solution, with reference to Indian markets
• Identify the key instruments that align finance and corporate decisions with sustainability, including capital allocation, risk management and disclosure
• Translate net zero and SDG goals into financial strategies for a sustainable future in your organisation

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Define the principles of the regenerative and circular economy and position them as alternatives to the linear model, with relevance to India
• Evaluate the challenges and opportunities of business transformation, including the changing nature of work, emerging technologies and how to manage innovation
• Explore approaches that enable and govern innovation and whole-business change, with examples from Indian sectors and supply chains

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Explain how socio-technical interventions can speed progress towards net zero and the SDGs
• Use strategic questions to evaluate emerging technologies and their potential to transform business
• Analyse how enterprise interacts with policy and governance at local, national and global levels, noting opportunities and risks in the Indian context
• Explain how the law supports progress on net zero and the SDGs, including implications for corporate duty, disclosure and accountability

This week, you will submit your final assessment: a concise pitch for leading strategic change in your organisation, drawing on the programme’s concepts and evidence.

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Identify leadership styles for sustainable enterprise and select those that fit you and your organisation
• Evaluate how you will adapt your leadership approach to deliver credible, lasting change
• Map stakeholders, understand their intentions and craft an engagement strategy, with reference to Indian markets and institutions

A live capstone webinar led by ECube and Oxford SSEE faculty to connect the programme’s ideas to what ESG means for Indian enterprise today. We will synthesise key insights and focus on the Indian drivers of ESG performance across regulation, investors and global value chains.

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Articulate the business case for ESG in India, including regulatory, investor and market expectations
• Stress-test your leadership pitch with faculty and peers and refine a 90-day action plan
• Translate programme frameworks into practical governance, KPIs and reporting for your organisation
• Identify partnerships, financing and capabilities needed to deliver at scale in the Indian context
• Commit to clear next steps and make use of ECube and Oxford networks

1. By request, group prices may be available if an organisation purchases two or more places.
2. Places on the course are competitive, however in the occurrence that two weeks prior to the course start date places remain available, last-minute reductions to fill the course may be offered (with the exception of places obtained via deferral).
3. Strategic partnership discounts may be available on agreement with ECube.

4. A discount of up to 15% is available for Oxford alumni and participants who have successfully completed another Smith School Executive Education course. Please contact us in this regard.

   Updated January 2026