for Sustainability
Discover how systems thinking can transform your approach to sustainability. This course delves into key techniques and insights, helping you navigate today's complex ecological challenges with a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective.
In today’s rapidly changing world, mastering systems thinking is crucial for sustainability professionals to effectively address complex, interconnected environmental and social challenges.
Professional
February 25th
6 sessions
£950
Online
Self-paced learning & online sessions.
2 hours per week
90 min online interactive sessions with self-paced prep.
The modern economy is suddenly shaped by a Race to Artificial Intelligence. Yet, the real – increasingly existential – race is whether we can exercise Sustainable Intelligence before it is too late.
Systems thinking, newly on the rise in many fields, but still largely absent in professional settings, holds the key because it explains why so many widely accepted sustainability ‘solutions’ continue to disappoint and identifies alternative strategies that may yet work.
This course presents the key techniques and insights of systems thinking for those seeking better answers for today’s sustainability challenges.
LIS leads in interdisciplinary education, empowering you with expert systems thinking skills essential for confronting and solving today's complex sustainability issues urgently.
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Who is this course for?
This course may be of interest to those:
- Working in the sustainability field (in private, public, or non-profit sectors) who seek a deeper understanding of the fundamental drivers of social and ecological problems.
- Wishing to learn more about complexity and systems thinking.
- Experiencing frustration or dissonance with today’s sustainability discourse (and possibly their own sustainability roles), but who have had limited opportunity to explore the underlying reasons for their frustration.
- Seeking clearer understanding of why there can be so much widespread and seemingly earnest commitment to ‘sustainability’, yet certain problems only seem to be getting worse.
- Eager to understand and identify more fundamental and authentic sustainability solutions.
Structure of the course
The course consists 6 online sessions.
The course follows a ‘U-shaped’ structure of ‘unlearning to relearn’ that leads participants from the ‘surface’ of today’s problems to the ‘deeper’ insights of systems thinking and then back to the surface to reflect on sustainability solutions with a newly acquired systems perspective.
Gain critical systems thinking skills, understand complex sustainability challenges, and develop innovative, interdisciplinary strategies to drive real, impactful change in your field.
All sessions will be held online.
*This course structure is provisional and may change as we finalise the content.
Duncan has had a nearly 3-decade career in environmental economics and sustainable finance, across academic, non-profit and for-profit institutions. After obtaining an MSc in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics (UCL), he spent 8 years as an environmental economist at World Resources Institute in Washington D.C. He then returned to London to act as an investment partner at a leading sustainable investment firm for 15 years. He now writes and lectures on systems thinking and sustainability issues.
Anson is a theoretical physicist with a background in building models in condensed matter theory. He specialises in complex systems with many-body interactions. He received his undergraduate degree and PhD from Cambridge University where he was a research fellow and remains an affiliated lecturer. Keenly interested in the pedagogical development of problem-solving skills at the secondary-tertiary interface, he is a trustee of the British Physics Olympiad, and he has also served in middle management in secondary schools.
Grasp key systems thinking and complexity principles and terms;
Comprehend ecological, social, and economic systems as nested emergent complex systems;
Recognise the relation between private, public policy, and behavioural/cultural responses to sustainability challenges;
Develop a framework to understand the historical development of the sustainability discourse over the last 50 years.
By the end of the course, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of the unique principles, complexities, and practices of systems thinking, and how to effectively apply these insights to tackle sustainability challenges in their professional lives.
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