Falk School Offers Field Guide for Future Sustainability Leaders
The world’s stock markets used to react based on quarterly results—increasingly, that metric is changing to hourly news headings. That means that future leaders must find new approaches to systemic challenges if we hope to build more sustainable economies.
Chatham University launched the Falk School of Sustainability & Environment and its Masters of Sustainability degree to better prepare these leaders. In a new Field Guide for Future Sustainability Leaders, Falk School faculty offer a variety of data points and tools from some of the world’s leading sustainability-minded organizations.
One example is sociologist Elise Boulding’s concept of the “200-year present” — a term that frames the present moment through the life spans of the oldest and youngest living individuals at a given period of time, a span of roughly 200 years. This alternative framework gives business and sustainability leaders a way of repositioning business process and investment decisions.
Other topics and insights found within the Field Guide for Future Sustainability Leaders include:
WomenRising2030
A look at six key competencies required of any future sustainability leader. Provided by a report from the WomenRising2030, Business and Sustainable Development Commission, they include: Long-term Thinking, Innovation, Collaboration, Transparency, Environmental Management and Social Inclusiveness actions on the future.
GreenTech Made in Germany 2018
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks Germany as one of the world’s most sustainable industrial countries, and this report shows a look at where German green tech entrepreneurs and investors have concentrated resources. The Environmental Technology Atlas for Germany ranks areas of green tech in descending order of investment:
(1) Green energies/energy conservation
(2) Energy efficiency
(3) Resource and material efficiency
(4) Sustainable mobility
(5) Recycling economy
(6) Sustainable water economy
The Future of Work in a Changing Natural Environment
Part of the International Labour Organization’s Future of Work Series, the report shows the top job winners and losers in a Sustainable Energy Future. The three areas most likely to see job gains are production of electricity by solar thermal energy, production of electricity by geothermal energy, and production of electricity by wind.
The 2019 Sustainability Leaders Survey (GlobeScan-SustainAbility)
Among a variety of questions, this survey asks the world’s top sustainability managers to rank the most sustainability-minded companies and executives. While Unilever’s eight-year trend of sustainability leadership continues, companies such as Patagonia, IKEA, Natura and Danone have all gained ground.
Each insight and data point leads to expanded inquiry — a chance for you to project yourself into the future. The Field Guide for Future Sustainability Leaders seeks to expose you to the kind of organizational, process- and sustainability-related change work that is the hallmark of the Master of Sustainability program.
Whether you go on to lead a new energy technology start-up, join a large multinational conservation agency, or launch a non-profit that champions local food policy or clean water, you’ll bring a 360-degree understanding of how to bring sustainable thinking from the margins to the strategic center.