UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

Sustainability, doing what we can now to preserve the environment for the future, is made up of three pillars: environment, economics, and social equity. The environment pillar refers to the goods and services provided by our planet for survival of humans and non-humans. The economics pillar refers to the reality of ensuring livelihoods are protected and enhanced while the environment is being protected for future generations. The social equity pillar refers to ensuring all groups are treated equally and fairness in environmental-decision making for future generations is front and center. Being sustainable, or green, sounds simple, but in practice is not easy. Often, sustainability is pawned off as a quick fix solution, but is this what is best for the long term? Students in this course will learn about, discuss, and act upon the components of sustainability and their role in sustainability by investigating the opportunities and challenges of sustainability in context of their daily lives, their future, and our future generations.