Sustainability Management

MIA & MPA Leadership and Management Core II. Sustainability management matters because we only have one planet, and we must learn how to manage our organizations in a way that ensures that our planet is maintained. The course is designed to introduce you to the field of sustainability management. This is not an academic course that reviews the literature of the field and discusses how scholars think about the management of organizations that are environmentally sound. It is a practical, professional course organized around the core concepts of management and the core concepts of sustainability. The course will have a specific emphasis on urban sustainability as the planet’s urban population continues to expand. 

Each week, we will read one or two cases in management and/or sustainability, along with some background material designed to help you answer questions posed at the end of each case exercise. The cases always pose practical issues for decision makers to address—but issues that are best addressed with a firm grounding in the literature of management and sustainability. 

The literature and case material we will study this semester are based on lessons learned in government, nonprofits, and the private sector. However, most of my own work focuses on government and nonprofits, so this course will also emphasize management in public and nonprofit organizations and the role of public policy in sustainability. 

In this course, you will be assigned to one team that will present a briefing in class on an assigned position for a particular case. You will also write three, two-page memos according to a specified format (see “Action Memo Format” document on Courseworks). The syllabus includes a schedule of all the assignments, as well as the instructions and prompts for each.