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Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management
The earth is witnessing human-induced environmental change on a scale and at a pace that is unique in history. Increased levels of greenhouse gases are warming the planet; the extinction of species is occurring at an ever-faster rate; renewable resources such as water are being degraded; and finite resources such as fossil fuels are having widespread negative impacts on fragile, interconnected, natural systems. To survive, we must understand these impacts and develop real-world solutions that sustainably manage human interaction with natural systems.
Our goal is to cultivate a new profession that manages earth systems in ways that will ensure the long-term viability of life on our planet. This concentration, coupled with the rigorous Executive MPA core, emphasizes integrated thinking and learning so that our graduates will see beyond linear and fragmented approaches to holistic planning for environmental sustainability.
CORE COURSE
Sustainability Management (in place of Public Management)
The course translates academic study in organization theory, bureaucracy, and management into practical lessons for leaders. We develop a framework for understanding and applying tools that can be used to influence organization behavior and obtain resources from the organization's environment.
Earth system-related case studies present a set of problems for public managers to address. The focus is on state and local environmental management, with treatment of local land use and NIMBY (not in my backyard) issues. Cases will deal with public, private, and nonprofit environmental management, and will include U.S. and international settings. Each week students are either briefed by a group of their colleagues on a case or submit a two-page memo on the week's case. Memo-writing, group process, and communication skills are taught through hands-on assignments.
Concentration Courses
Sustainability Economics
This course builds on core economics courses and addresses issues of environmental, resource, and sustainable economics. It focuses on the interaction between markets and the environment; policy issues related to optimal extraction and pricing; and property rights in industrial and developing countries and how they affect international trade in goods such as timber, wood pulp, and oil. The use of the world's water bodies and the atmosphere as economic inputs to production are also examined. The economics of renewable resources is described and sustainable economic development models are discussed and analyzed. Some time will also be devoted to international trade and regulation and industrial organization issues.
An important goal of the class is to have students work in groups to apply economic concepts to current public policy issues having to do with urban environmental and earth systems. Students learn not only economic concepts, but also how to explain them to decision-makers.
Financing the Green Economy
This finance course gives students a foundation in finance and financial models and an understanding of how environmental commodities markets regulate polluting industries and provide incentives for encouraging desired behaviors. Students will also investigate the credibility of “non-financial metrics” that often accompany sustainability efforts.
This course is designed to explore the large-scale transition to a low-carbon economy through several distinct vantage points, including emerging environmental markets, new businesses and industries positioned to capitalize on perceived market opportunities in addressing environmental and other national priorities, and how changing energy and climate change policies affects prevailing social norms.
By the end of the course, students should have a basic understanding of how emerging environmental markets currently function and may be expected to function in the future. In addition, students will understand how such markets are designed and regulated to achieve policy objectives. Students should also gain an understanding of who the “players” are in new businesses and industries affecting change in this space and for their own view of their likelihood of success. In addition, students should come away with an understanding of the main drivers of policy initiatives—including the underlying politics—that have shaped the environmental finance field to date and what drivers are influencing the current debate at the federal, state, and local levels. Appreciating the issues at the intersection of markets, commercial interests, and policy should prepare students to pursue further scholarship in related areas and equip them with an understanding of the dynamics and players that will serve them well in pursuing work professionally in the environmental finance industry, or in related commercial, governmental, and not-for-profit organizations.
Green Accounting
The course introduces practitioners of environmental science and sustainability management to a number of approaches to accounting for environmental costs in business and policy. The course provides a basic introduction to financial accounting and analyzes the income statement, cash flow statement, and the balance sheet using examples of cleantech and resource extraction companies. Conventional cost and management accounting concepts for business entities are introduced, with a focus on accounting for waste, depletion and byproducts. Green accounting methodologies with a systems focus such as life cycle analysis and sustainability metrics are presented. Conventional national income accounting is introduced and critically evaluated, with a detailed examination of green accounting alternatives. Worked examples and case studies are integral to each topic. Students are assumed to have had no previous exposure to accounting.
Environmental Politics, Policy and Management
Environmental policy has changed significantly in the past three decades in the face of increasingly complex challenges of sustaining life on earth. Many proposed solutions to environmental problems rely on collective action and government policies and regulations that attempt to address the inherent market failures and externalities of natural resource degradation. The processes to establish these policies and institutions are far from simple.
This course is designed to guide students interested in policy and management an understanding of how environmental policies are devised, implemented, and evaluated. This knowledge is critical for environmental professionals because great solutions to environmental problems mean little without the attendant political and institutional will and capacity to implement, evaluate, and modify them . Throughout the course we will highlight how values, policy processes, and the choice of policy tools and administrative factors shape policy outcomes. The course assesses the nature of environmental problems today and how society and policymakers view them. It examines the scale of problems, the interrelationships among ecological and human systems and how social values and technical challenges shape these problems.
The course reviews the different types of environmental policy tools (regulation to markets, information disclosure, community-based management) to address the problems. It covers the key management issues and challenges to implementing different environmental policies. What are some mechanisms for effective stakeholder communication, enforcement, policy adaptation, and performance evaluation?The Science of Environmental Sustainability
Global environmental threats have suddenly become part of our everyday life, both in the form of news on natural disasters in different parts of the world and through a series of new scientific discoveries. Scientific knowledge about our planet as a system in which there is an interplay between the atmosphere, oceans, and land surfaces has increased dramatically in recent decades. In step with that development is the understanding that our political and economic systems must take these global challenges seriously.
Sustainable development was launched 20 years ago as society’s response both to conventional social problems, such as poverty, conflicts and ill-health, and to the new global environmental problems, such as climate change, the loss of biological diversity, water shortage, and changes in land-use. That means that sustainability science is a broad scientific field that studies integrated social and natural systems, processes, and structures, and in which the objective of knowledge is the sustainable development of society. This interdisciplinary course seeks to provide a general overview in sustainability science and to help students develop new knowledge in order to better understand society’s role as communities beginning transitioning towards sustainable development. Topics covered may include: Ecology, Ecosystems and Biodiversity, Human Populations and Development, Water: Hydrologic Cycle and Human Use, Soil: Foundation for Land Ecosystems, Traditional and New Energy Sources, Environmental Hazards and Human Health, Global Climate Change, Atmospheric Pollution, Water Pollution and Its Prevention, and Sustainable Development.
Sustainable Cities and Built Environments
This course prepares students to understand, analyze, and develop policies and procedures to address sustainability issues faced by urban centers in the developed and developing world, their decision-makers, and inhabitants. Enrolled students are assumed to have had no previous in-depth exposure to sustainable urban development and urban planning. By the end of the course, students will have learned the following skills necessary to develop strategies and related actions to enhance sustainability of cities: identify and support good practices in green and efficient urban development and planning; develop policies and foster technologies used to promote energy efficiency and reduced emissions from buildings and transportation; develop policies and foster technologies necessary to ensure access to clean water; develop policies and foster technologies necessary for the effective collection, disposal, and possible re-use of waste; create approaches to climate change adaptation measures undertaken by cities; develop, track, and analyze sustainability metrics and indicators for urban centers.
The first half of the course focuses on macro issues of sustainable urban design and then focuses specifically on the built environment. The course will familiarize students with core architectural design strategies and mechanical/technical systems that can and will make existing facilities or new ones more resource and task efficient, all while creating an architectural environment that is, for its occupants, thermally comfortable, psychologically affective, sustainably instructive and, with any luck, architecturally poetic.
To be successful, a sustainable building must be an inspired and inspirational combination of architecture and sustainable science. The course will therefore focus on how the principals and technical details of climatic analysis and thermal comfort can, in combination with a building’s program, create a logical framework that can creatively and rationally guide the development of a sustainable building.
While many of the sustainable strategies explored apply to both existing and new construction, the focus in this part of the course will be on new buildings. The course requires no previous experience with architecture, sustainable design or climatic analysis.
Sustainability Metrics and Analytics
This course reviews typical measures used to track and assess an organization’s use of resources and its impact on ecological systems. The course requires students to develop and utilize measures and analyze their use and potential misuse in organizational settings. In order to manage something you must be able to measure it. If we are to develop and manage the high throughput economy, we must develop measures to determine whether or not sustainability is being promoted. This course provides the theory and practice of sustainability measurement and analysis.
One elective in an environment or energy course
The program will provide access to topical and integrative courses that can be used to complete an elective. These will be offered on week nights and possibly through distance learning. These will range from courses on climate policy, water management, ,and energy efficiency to courses on carbon foot printing and life-cycle analysis.