Environmental Management and Sustainability

Human-environment interactions pose some of the most compelling and fraught challenges of the 21st century (climate change, deforestation, water resource availability, energy consumption, urban expansion and population growth, and food security). Understanding these challenges and solving environmental problems requires both knowledge of ecological and physical processes and insight into the cultural, demographic, economic, geographical and political aspects of human-environment connections. Environmental management is therefore complex and requires interdisciplinary approaches to resolving challenges posed by human-environment interactions.

Environmental management combines the social sciences and humanities with the study of physical geography, the earth sciences and biology to provide the breadth of knowledge required of environmental managers.

Environmental managers work in a diverse array of roles and settings (ranging from policy-oriented to field-based positions). Employment sectors include: water resources, waste management, energy, natural resource management, land-based and coastal management, climate change, and sustainability.

This articulated program introduces you to contemporary theory and practice in environmental management and sustainable development, and to the study of environmental processes and systems.

Graduates are qualified to understand the world as an integrated whole. They use a powerful mix of interdisciplinary skills to solve a range of problems. They can analyse and synthesise complex environmental, economic, social and political information to enable an understanding of dynamic human-environment relationships.

Graduates are proficient at retrieving, synthesising and communicating information, as well as managing data and drawing on different sources of knowledge. They think critically and creatively and work effectively in teams and on their own initiative. For these reasons graduates are highly employable in a wide variety of fields within and outside environmental management and sustainable development.