Postgraduate Studies in ESG Fundamentals for Business

Postgraduate Studies in ESG Fundamentals for Business discover all nuances of ESG and its importance for your sector and company, apply reporting tools to analyze ESG indicators.

Advantages

Interdisciplinary program – created by influential researchers and practitioners from academia, consultancy, strategic advisory

Practical approach – work on the ESG issues most important to your organization, using expertise and advice of our team

PwC and SGH experience – drawing on our achievements, you will get tools to create an ESG strategy for your organization

Why study?

Interdisciplinary program: created by influential researchers and practitioners from academia, consultancy, strategic advisory, environmental, legal and institutional sectors.
We concentrate on business needs and perspectives: our program is focused on equipping participants with practical skills and competencies necessary for ESG reporting.
Practical approach: you can work on the ESG issues most important to your organization while working on you final project, using expertise and advice of our interdisciplinary team.
Learning methods: our program is based on seminars, case studies, elements of lectures, and practical tools application. Examples, case studies and market analyses will be discussed in class. Students have the opportunity to ask questions, conduct discussions and stay in constant contact with lecturers during the whole program.
Drawing on PwC exceptional achievements in the field of ESG, our team will equip you with necessary tools to create an ESG strategy for your organization.
Building on SGH Warsaw School of Economics research heritage and teaching experience, our faculty will ensure knowledge you gain is adjusted to the business community needs.
By participating in English-language program you are ready to work on the ESG issues in international environment and can learn from international experts.

Are they for me?

Your company, just like any other, will face the necessity of ESG reporting either directly or indirectly as a part of larger value chain.
500,000 new ESG related jobs are expected this decade – don’t miss on this opportunity!
ESG careers are opening in risk management, strategic planning, policy analysis, social impact, and business innovation – it’s a must for any developing business.
ESG management is essential for employees who invest in building the ESG capacity of key management and staff.
With the European Green Deal and its implementation, each company should be prepared to develop an ESG strategy and documentation.

Recommendation

Recognize the macro trends, policy developments and economic drivers of ESG
Identify different ESG stakeholders and the roles they play in the ESG reporting process
Apply ESG reporting tools to analyze ESG indicators
Discover all nuances of ESG and its importance for your sector and company

Our bespoke Postgraduate Studies in ESG Fundamentals for Business program is directed at business leaders, which a goal of equipping them in tools to adapt to the rapidly changing entrepreneurial landscape. Our program will provide you with knowledge, skills and network to navigate your ESG strategy decisions. In addition, you will gain understanding of key concepts and impact of ESG issues on business. Team of researchers from SGH Warsaw School of Economics and practitioners from PwC, experts on both business and ESG, will equip our participants with thorough understating of global ESG issues. Extensive knowledge and expertise of our Team will allow you to gain competitive advantage our competition.

Professor Ewelina Szczech-Pietkiewicz, Ph.D

Head of studies

Curriculum

The program of Postgraduate Studies in ESG Fundamentals for Business consists of 164 hours and is divided within 5 thematic modules:

Introductory issues to ESG reporting: regulations, taxonomy, motivation
Areas of ESG implementation at a company level
Sustainable investment
ESG measurement and reporting
ESG as a business strategy
Final project / Thesis

Students design an implementable ESG plan for a selected company or institution as a final project.

The studies are conducted in English.

Head of studies

Professor Ewelina Szczech-Pietkiewicz, Ph.D

Institute of International Economic Policy

Ewelina Szczech-Pietkiewicz gained her habilitation in economics and finance in 2020, after a PhD in economics (2007) at SGH Warsaw School of Economics. Her scientific interests are focused on issues of sustainable development, circular economy and urban development.

She gained research and scientific experience working at: Aarhus University (Department of Business and Social Sciences), University of Barcelona (Urban Creativity, Innovation and Transformation Research Group), University of Glasgow (Dekaban-Liddle Senior Fellowship), and University of Iceland. She is engaged as a manager or researcher in various research projects, i.a. Circularity Gap Report Poland, Jean Monnet Erasmus+ and National Centre of Research and Development.

Lecturers

Tomasz Barańczyk, Partner, PwC Poland

Tomasz Barańczyk has been engaged in advisory services for leading companies from various business sectors since 1996. His key clients are companies from the energy, oil and gas sectors. Since 2003 he has been a licensed tax advisor. In the years 2013-2018 he was the managing partner of the PwC Tax and Legal Department in Poland. He has been acting as tax and legal leader of client markets and ESG in the CEE region.

Tomasz has extensive experience in conducting comprehensive tax optimization projects for companies, mainly with respect to Corporate Income Tax, VAT, excise duty, customs and other public legal levies. In his professional life, Tomasz has managed teams which reviewed the existing business structures of clients and provided them with comprehensive support in the preparation of favourable tax solutions and their subsequent implementation. As the leader of a platform covering various forms of ESG support for companies and individuals cooperating with PwC, Tomasz supports and supervises the operations of the respective experts in Poland. Tomasz has participated in many conferences on tax law held in Poland and abroad as a speaker; he is also the author of many articles on tax issues published in the professional press.

Úna Barrett, Partner, PwC Poland

Úna has over 13 years of experience working with Global financial institutions in EMEA and APAC. She is experienced in helping banking Clients with large and complex transformational projects in the areas of ESG, Financial Crime and Compliance. She is passionate about Environmental, Social and Governance topics and aims to inspire and motivate colleagues and Clients to engage in discussions about the practical application of ESG practices.

Her recent ESG engagements include the design and delivery of an ESG training programme for a Scandinavian Bank’s senior management team; developing an ESG data management framework for a financial institution in Asia and its European subsidiaries; and supporting a UK bank with the development of their ESG strategy and framework.At PwC, Úna has also developed technology enabled ESG solutions that seek to mitigate greenwashing risks and compile detailed ESG profiles for customers, suppliers, vendors and other third party/business party relationships. She has a Masters degree from the London School of Economics and a certificate in Business Sustainability Management from the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Adam Czerniak, Ph.D.

Adam Czerniak is director for research at Polityka Insight and head of the Institutional and Political Economy Unit at the Warsaw School of Economics. Until 2012, he worked as a banking economist, previously he cooperated with the World Bank and the FOR Foundation, he was also a Ronald Coase Institute scholarship fellow.

He authored dozens of publications in the field of economic sociology, institutional economics, political economy and varieties of residential capitalism. He is the Polish representative to the European Master in Official Statistics Board (term 2021-2023) and the programme council member of the PRS Foundation.

José Miguel Salazar Hernández, Manager, PwC Poland

José is a Manager at PwC with focus on sustainable business transformation, net zero and climate solutions. He is the lead author of PwC’s Net Zero Future50 Report - CEE Edition, which looks at the state of climate tech in 27 territories and 8 sectors. José has seven years of experience in sustainability advisory services gained in more than 20 projects across 3 continents.

In the past few years, José has been supporting publicly listed companies from a wide range of industries in areas such as reporting, risk management and strategy setting. Moreover, he has served as a judge on several Asian CSR awards such as the Global Corporate Sustainability Awards (GCSA) and the British Chamber of Commerce in Taipei’s Better Business Awards. José is a native of El Salvador and in 2020 was recognized as a 30 Under 30 honoree by Greenbiz. He is a GARP SCR and IFRS FSA Credential Holder.

Ewelina Łukasik-Morawska, Manager, PwC Polska

Manager in the CEE Sustainability Hub at PwC with focus on ESG strategy development, sustainable supply chain management and ESG technology solutions. She has over 11 years of experience in environmental, social, and corporate governance analysis and engagement with multinationals as part of asset owners and asset managers» active ownership strategy.

Her experience includes serving multiple roles at ESG rating agencies such as GES International, Sustainalytics, and Morningstar. For the last 11 years, she was engaging with around 30 companies annually running dialogue with current or potential investee companies on a number of ESG topics with a goal of developing or improving ESG strategy, defining KPIs and framework for ESG reporting. She successfully led engagement programmes on plastics and circular economy; and co-developed climate change and sustainable forest management programmes, governance of SDGs programme as well as human rights dedicated programme. She has extensive experience in carrying out ESG due diligence, materiality assessment and working with multinationals in a variety of sectors globally including agriculture, financial, food, pharma, retailers, apparel, industrial conglomerates as well as gas and oil, energy and steel industries. For the last years Ewelina has been engaging with investors and investee companies on various ESG topics such as ESG strategy, non-financial disclosure, climate change or sustainable supply chain management and how those can be supported by ESG technology solutions.

Zuzanna Machniak, Associate, PwC Poland

Regulatory lawyer certified as an expert in sustainable finance (CESFi) by Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. She specializes in banking law and ESG regulations. She has advised numerous financial institutions and non-financial companies on regulatory issues related to ESG such as implementation of Taxonomy Regulation, CSRD, SFDR, CSDD, regulatory mitigation of greenwashing risk and implementation of ESG aspects to MiFID II, IDD, Solvency II, AIFMD and UCITS Directive.

As an expert in the working groups of the Polish Bank Association she advises on regulatory issues related to Taxonomy Regulation, greenwashing and ESG aspects in brokerage services (MiFID II) and co-authored ESG interpretive explanations for the Polish financial sector. Zuzanna graduated from Jagiellonian University in Cracow, The Catholic University of America – Columbus School of Law (LL.M.) and SGH Warsaw School of Economics (postgraduate degree in Capital Market Law & Economics).

Agnieszka Rogowiec, Senior Manager, PwC Poland

Senior Manager and Team Leader in the regional ESG team in Central and Eastern Europe and manages the ESG HUB, which is the main body of the ESG platform in the region, bringing together over 400 ESG experts. She has over 9 years of experience in advising on environmental, social issues and corporate governance.

She provides direct support and advises clients in two main areas, i.e., strategic approach to ESG and transactional support. She conducts projects related to the assessment of ESG maturity, value creation strategies, preparation of ESG strategies, including supporting revenue growth, reducing costs, minimizing regulatory interventions, increasing employee productivity and optimizing investments and capital expenditures. Agnieszka deals with transactional support throughout the transaction cycle: target screening, ESG DD for buyers and sellers. In addition, she supports clients in preparing assessments for compliance with lenders» standards (IFC Performance Standards, Equator Principles, EBRD PRs). During her professional career she performed more than 100 assessments (EDD, ESDD, ESG DD) in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Egypt. She worked for international firms from the environmental consulting sector such as Ramboll and ERM. Moreover, she is experienced in ESG reporting for the purposes of the due diligence process as well as for the purposes of annual non-financial reporting, which she conducted, while working for a company from the renewable energy sector (POLENERGIA S.A.).

Piotr Rówiński, Partner, PwC Poland

PwC Partner in the sustainability, internal audit, internal control, risk management and compliance team in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). He has over 20 years of experience in corporate governance, risk management, compliance, internal audit, sustainability (ESG) and financial statement auditing in Poland, the UK and CEE.

For several years, Piotr has also been involved in sustainability issues, in particular ESG strategy development, design and optimisation of processes to collect and analyse ESG data necessary for management and non-financial reporting, preparation of sustainability reports. Piotr heads the CEE competence centre for carbon footprinting. He is also a Chartered Accountant (FCCA) and also deals with attestation of non-financial reports.

Weronika Wojturska, Associate, PwC Poland

Lawyer in the Banking & Finance practice specializing in ESG and FinTech/InsurTech projects, certified expert in sustainable finance by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, PhDc, lecturer, research projects manager and multiple laureate of Polish Ministry of Education and Science awards and grant programs for outstanding young scientists at the University of Warsaw.

In 2023 she was appointed as an expert by the Polish Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Development and Technology to support Working Groups on the application of the EU Taxonomy (selected as one of 35 experts from all over the country); and on research, education and training in sustainable finance within the Polish Sustainable Finance Platform. Since 2021 she has particular influence on the practice of the Polish FS sector, having co-authored a series of market guidelines developed in cooperation with the Polish Bank Association and the Chamber of Brokerage Houses, shaping the approach to changes in SFDR disclosures, non-financial reporting according to the EU Taxonomy and trading in financial instruments (MIFID II).

Opinions

„ ”

Admission

Recruitment for the 2nd edition has been completed.

The 3rd edition of the studies will be launched in the winter semester of the academic year 2025/2026. Classes will begin in November 2025.

Recruitment for the 3rd edition will begin in April/May 2025.

Required documents:

agreement on the conditions of the payment of tuition fees
application form
copy of the diploma awarded on completion of – at least – the first degree of studies (Bachelor),

In the case of foreign diplomas: Master’s or Bachelor’s degree diploma with transcripts (in some countries called: general opinion on diploma) certifying the completion of university studies. Apart from diploma and transcript/general opinion on diploma, foreign university’s degree-holder, has to submit Polish translation of both documents (diploma and transcript/general opinion on diploma). We accept only translations provided by a certified translators (PL: tłumacz przysięgły). Please note that foreign diploma recognition at SGH may last up to 30 days. Without having foreign diploma recognized at SGH, you can not be enrolled in post-graduate studies.

Diploma nostrification and recognition

Graduation certificate is issued based on:

Oral final exam.
Active participation in classes: participation in workshops and discussions.
Assignments and case study elaboration (workshops).

Timetable

Classes will take place on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. twice a month, on the following dates:

November 16–17, 2024
November 30, 2024–December 1, 2024
December 14–15, 2024
January 11–12, 2025
January 25–26, 2025
February 15–16, 2025
March 1–02, 2025
March 15–16, 2025
March 29–30, 2025
April 12–13, 2025
May 10–11, 2025
May 24–25, 2025
June 14–15, 2025

The organizers reserve the right to change the above dates.

Costs

Tuition fee: 9 000 PLN (with option of payment in two installments).
The tuition fee covers teaching materials and issuance of the graduation certificate.