Special Topics Class - Sustainability in

The tech industry’s environmental and social impacts are growing as generative AI and agentic applications become part of our daily lives. What can be done about tech’s energy, water, and mineral demands? Whose responsibility is it to manage resource use sustainably? And what can we learn from tech’s past sustainability efforts, like conflict mineral regulation and e-waste management?

To answer these questions, we will first investigate the hidden environmental and human impacts of producing digital devices, software, and the internet.  We will also examine current efforts to mitigate the negative impacts, from green software standards to circular hardware initiatives. In the second half of the course, we will analyze these initiatives from the perspective of diverse stakeholders, from institutions to grassroots groups, in order to understand how reform succeeds or stalls. Practitioners will share real-world initiatives across the tech value chain.

This course equips students to think strategically about systems change, using initiatives from the tech industry as case studies. Students will acquire tools for working with external stakeholders and apply them in the final project:  developing a multi-stakeholder sustainability strategy.