About the Sustainability Program

Sustainability is a growing field with an array of different career opportunities.

Companies are increasingly finding sustainability efforts to be an integral part of their business model. The number of companies appointing chief sustainability officers (CSO) jumped threefold in 2021 year-on-year, and the number of companies with specific targets for reducing their own operational greenhouse gas emissions has grown by a factor of 100 in the last  several years, from a handful to around 4,000. Municipalities also find sustainability offices, including resilience, climate, water, waste and energy planning to be important for their operations. “Until just over a decade ago, there was no such thing as a Sustainability Director or Chief Resilience Officer for cities. Now, cities feel incomplete without them.”

Concerns about food systems and health, livable urban spaces and social justice, just to name a few topics, will continue to be important for this generation of students, and sustainability as a framework will be central to these discussions and movements. Companies have identified a large sustainability skills gap that we aim to fill by educating students and engaging with community partners.

How does our program stand out?

• Created “from scratch” – not just a re-tooled Environmental Science or Environmental Studies program; allowed us to think creatively about very interdisciplinary (and sometimes, team-taught) courses.
• Four tracks: Food Systems (B.A.); Urban Sustainability (B.A.); Energy (B.S.); Watersheds (B.S.).
• Minor in Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (SEE).
• Graduate Certificate in Sustainability.
• Broad-based – intentionally inclusive of a wide range of disciplines across the College and the University to avoid being pigeon-holed as a “science” or “social science” or “engineering” approach to sustainability. Perhaps the only program that extends across all units of the university.
• Collaborative – in addition to our own sustainability core and capstone courses, we take advantage of relevant courses from within a number of disciplines; not a siloed department, but cooperating with many departments both in terms of “borrowed” faculty and organization of course offerings.
• Supportive of the HSI Strategic Plan – campus sustainability (working closely with Facilities Management, particularly in Sustainability Research I course), community engagement (for example, in Sustainability Research II course as well as with newly-developed internship opportunities for sustainability students), developing student leaders (internships, work with HSI), research (students working with faculty on research projects, for example in SURF projects or honors theses).
• Developing international opportunities and study abroad programs to enable students to view sustainability from a broader perspective.