Ethics and Decision-Making in Green Product Design

Explore the ethical, social, political, legal, and business issues raised by the transition to a green chemistry economy. 

Developed and taught in Spring 2012 by Christine Rosen, Alastair Iles, and Joe Guth.

Learning Objectives

This seminar course explores some of the personal, business, legal and political conflicts that complicate society’s efforts to transition to a green chemistry economy, as seen through an ethics lens. Key issues include evolving social norms faced by scientists, lawyers and business managers; public policies affecting human health and ecosystems; and individual and societal responsibilities. Our focus is on the different approaches to resolving ethical issues raised by the social objective of minimizing harm to human health and natural ecosystems through green product design.

Course Details

Ethics & Decision-Making in Green Product Design was taught as a 1-credit course in Spring 2012, offered by the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. The Berkeley Center For Green Chemistry gratefully acknowledges the California Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Toxics Substances Control for supporting the development of this curriculum and the and teaching of this course.

Course Materials

 
Syllabus & lesson plans (PDF, DOCX)
 
Course paper assignment (PDF)
 
Case study: Ethical Questions on the Use of Flame Retardants (PDFDOCX)
Class 7: Participatory Ethics: Class slides | Notes of Professor Iles
 

License 

Creative Commons License

Ethics and Decision-Making in Green Product Design by Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.