Sustainability Challenges

Course goals

Please note: the information in the course manual is binding.


After completion of the course the student is able to:

• Give a good overview of the concept of sustainable development, its history and complexity, and examples of various ways to operationalise it.
• Understand the people-planet-profit concepts and how they apply to various real-life sustainability challenges.
• Provide possible strategies for solutions to current global sustainability challenges.
• Understand that achieving sustainability solutions needs contributions from different perspectives, stakeholders and worldviews.
• Gather relevant scientific information and use it to develop an end product while upholding scientific integrity.
• Analyze a current sustainable development challenge and present possible solutions in a scientific manner by writing a paper and giving a presentation.
• Collaborate and contribute as a group member, reflect on the project process as well as their personal contribution to produce final products.
• Write texts for academic purposes in correct English, being aware of the appropriate academic style and structure to be used in such texts.
• Give an engaging presentation in English, being aware of an appropriate and effective presentation structure.

Content

This course aims at providing students a comprehensive overview to the concept of sustainable development and global sustainability challenges from the economic, environmental and social perspectives, and explores how sustainable development can be achieved at the local and global level. 

After discussing the current situation and why business-as-usual is no longer an option, we explore how change happens and which roles of governance, finance, collective action and science and technology can play in bringing about change. Core topics include sustainable food and energy production, just and circular economies, (in)equalities and resilience. But also concepts as environmental health, planetary boundaries, climate change, worldviews and ethics will be addressed.

The course consists of lectures, mandatory tutorials (including a serious game), workshops Academic Writing and Presenting, an exam and a large group project. Students will spend 4 weeks on the Sustainability Challenge project, which consists of a current global sustainability issue that will be analyzed by the group members from the different sustainability perspectives. The group will come up with a new innovative possible solution to the sustainability challenge. The project will result in a paper and a scientific presentation.

This course is the entry requirement for:

• Bachelor’s thesis GSS (GEO3-2422)
• Consultancy Project (GEO3-2423)