This course aims to facilitate the development of students’ knowledge and understanding necessary to identify and assess risks associated with unsustainable (net negative) practices in projects they will take part in throughout their careers. Today, projects designed to implement policies that are labelled “sustainable” may reduce but not replace what is “used up” in the process of design and implementation. In this course, students will learn to elevate their approach to critical thinking, data gathering and decision-making about truly sustainable alternatives to net negative sustainable processes, and to identify and execute opportunities to apply innovative responses to major sustainability issues as well. This learning will emerge from dialoguing with expert lecturers, absorbing assigned reading materials covering a range of frameworks, models, and approaches that are already known to reverse negative or unsustainable practices, and by applying them to diverse case studies and then to a field project in the Caribbean.
After completing their post-graduate degree programme, the students will be able to incorporate into their toolkit of contemporary project management practices, a sustainability mindset that enables them to champion sustainable development. Ultimately, they could place themselves as partners and leaders in a movement that more and more governments and businesses are embracing, by re-evaluating the products they are delivering (and for whom), addressing human and material resources from a new (not exclusively profit-based) perspective, adjusting the strategic direction of their organizations to include opportunities to develop ethical partnerships for greater impact, and incorporating more equity and empathy in project selections decisions that impact stakeholders.