Sustainability Courses

Spring 2021 | Provides a practical introduction to key innovations in the fields of civil and environmental engineering that are currently having an impact.

• Professor: B. Marelli

• MWF 9:00

Fall 2023  | Seminar examines food production in a changing world, with an emphasis on key scientific questions about the connections between natural resources, climate, and agriculture.

• Faculty: McLaughlin
• TR 2:30-4:00

Fall 2023  |  Seminar series on current research on energy systems modeling and analysis.

Spring 2023 | Addresses economic growth, environmental preservation, and social equity through the lens of sustainability.

• Faculty: Knox-Hayes
• T 2:00-5:00 

Spring 2023 | Builds insight and skills about multi-party negotiation and consensus building. Relevant to all multi-sectoral work.

• Faculty: Susskind
• MW 3:30-5:30

Spring 2023 | Designed for students who wish to gain deep insights into the tension and synergy between sustainability and the real estate industry.

• W (7-8.30 PM)
• Zheng, Palacios, Tan

Fall 2023 | Assessment of current and potential future energy systems. Covers resources, extraction, conversion, and end-use technologies, with emphasis on meeting 21st-century regional and global energy needs in a sustainable manner.

• Faculty: Golay, Friedberg

Fall 2021 | Provides a critical introduction to the shape and determinants of political, social, and economic inequality in America, with a focus on racial and economic justice. 

• Faculty: Steil
• TR 9:30-11:00

Spring 2023 | Technology and policy options for improving access to clean water and sanitation globally.

• Faculty: S. Murcott, S. Hsu

Fall 2023 | Examines the tensions and potential synergies among traditional transportation policy values of individual mobility, system efficiency and “sustainability”

• J. Aloisi

• F 2-5 pm

Fall 2023 | Studies interactions between planners and institutions at different scales, from local to global/transnational. Emphasizes historical and institutional approaches to development planning.

• B. Rajagopal
• T, Th 2:30 - 4:00 

Fall 2023 | This course provides an introduction to the study of environmental phenomena that exhibit both organized structure and wide variability.

• DH Rothman

• TR 11-12:30 pm

Fall 2023 | This course applies microeconomic theory to analysis of public policy. It builds from the microeconomic model of consumer behavior and extends to operations.

• Faculty D.Autor

• MW 10:30-12 pm Rec: F9

Spring 2022 | Discusses theory and evidence on environmental externalities and regulatory, tax, and other government responses to problems of market failure.

• Professor: C Balboni

• TR 10:30 - 12:00, F 10:30 - 12:00

Fall 2022 | Covers energy and environmental market organization and regulation. Explores economic challenges and solutions to transforming energy markets to be more efficient, accessible, affordable, and sustainable.

• MW 8:30-10AM

Fall 2023 |  Students will have the opportunity to compare the working of U.S. policies confronting a wide range of energy issues.

• Faculty: J. Deutch

• TF 9:30 am - 11:00 am

Fall 2020 | Familiarizes students with the potential contributions and risks of using geoengineering technologies to control climate damage from global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

• Zuber

Spring 2020 | The course focuses heavily on accelerating the transition to cleaner forms of energy, as well as on the management of climate change, air quality, and other environmental challenges around the world.

• Faculty: Karplus
• TR 1:00-2:30

Spring 2023 | This class explores current issues in Southeast Asia’s political economy and business with a focus on key challenges that global managers need to consider as they define strategies and navigate their relationships with the local environment and the broader issue of China’s influence in the region (must be a sustainability-oriented project).

Spring 2023 | Introduction to ethics in business, with a focus on business management. Students explore theoretical concepts in business ethics, and cases representing the challenges they will likely face as managers.

• Faculty: Hafrey
• M;W 1:00PM-2:30PM

Fall 2023  | Project-based approach to innovation and venture creation in the energy sector and sectors that can mitigate climate change. Explores how innovation and entrepreneurial concepts apply (or do not apply) to the significant opportunities in these industries. Working in teams, students create new ventures specifically for the energy sector or to address climate change. Lectures guide teams through key elements of their projects. 15.390 is recommended as a prerequisite.

• Faculty: Hynes, O'Sullivan
• Th 5:30-8:00pm

Fall 2023 | Provides a structured approach to innovation and entrepreneurship that creates business value while solving social and environmental problems. Covers physical domains of sustainability, e.g., waste, water, food, energy, and mobility, as well as social and human capital domains, such as health and education. Students explore case studies of critical decisions made in the early stages of an enterprise that help determine its impact. Considers perspective and tools applicable to the startup context or to new lines of business in existing enterprises.

• Faculty: J. Jay
• WF 8:00-9:30

Spring 2023 | This course provides an introduction to social impact investing – an investment approach intentionally seeking to create both financial return and positive social impact that is actively measured.

• Faculty: Rao
• TR 2:30-4:00

Fall 2023 | Lecture course on governmental policies for encouraging sustainable growth, improving the environment, and advancing employment in developed and developing countries.

• Faculty: Ashford, Hall
• W 4:00-6:30

Spring 2023 | Reviews and analyzes federal and state regulation of air and water pollution, hazardous waste, green-house gas emissions, and the production and use of toxic chemicals. 

• Ashford, Caldart
• TR 3:30 - 5:00PM

Spring 2023 | Discusses the broader trends in the labor market, how urban labor markets function, public and private training policy, other labor market programs, the link between labor market policy and economic development, and the organization of work within firms.

• Faculty: Anna Stansbury
• Th 1:00PM-4:00PM

Fall 2023 | Explores the use of operations tools and perspectives in the service sector, including both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Builds on conceptual frameworks and cases from a wide range of service operations, selected from health care, hospitality, internet services, supply chain, transportation, retailing, food service, entertainment, financial services, humanitarian services, government services, and others

• Faculty: Ton

Spring 2023 | Project-based course on product design; teaches design for environment.

• Faculty: Eppinger, Yang
• TR1:00PM-4:00PM

Fall 2023 | Introduction to systems thinking and system dynamics modeling applied to strategy, organizational change, and policy design.  (Also offered in Spring).

• Sustainability Certificate Requirement 
• Faculty: Johan Chu; David Keith

Fall 2023 | Introduces governance and science aspects of complex environmental problems and approaches to solutions. Introduces quantitative analyses and methodological tools to analyze environmental issues that have human and natural components. Demonstrates concepts through a series of in-depth case studies of environmental governance and science problems.

• Faculty: Selin
• F 10:00-1:00

Spring 2023 |  Learn how businesses and organizations can play their part in tackling sustainability challenges ranging from over-fishing, labor rights, and supply chain resiliency.

• Faculty: Jay, Patten, Sterman
• T;Th 10:00AM-11:30AM
• Sustainability Certificate requirement | Required for 15.878: Sustainable Business Lab (S-Lab), can be taken concurrently.

Fall 2023 | A practical perspective - must be an effort linked to sustainability. (Only available to Legatum Fellows)

• Faculty: Mitchell
• Th 5:30-8pm

Fall 2023 | Combines rigorous engineering theory and user-centered product design to create technologies for developing and emerging markets. 

• Faculty: Winter

• MW 1-2.30

Spring 2023 | Introduces concepts of supply chain design and planning with a focus on supply chains for products destined to improve quality of life in developing countries.

• Professor: S. C. Graves
• MW 9:30-11:00 AM

Fall 2023 |  Provides an introduction to the concept of sustainability from various perspectives using the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the MIT campus and research.

• Faculty: Gutowski, Newman
• MW 1:00-2:30PM

Fall 2022 | Explores the complex interrelationships among humans and natural environments, focusing on non-western parts of the world in addition to Europe and the United States. 

• C. Walley
• W 1-4

Fall 2023 | Interdisciplinary subject that examines questions of feminism, international women's issues, and globalization.

• S. Haslanger, L. McDonald

• W 9:30-12:30 pm

Fall 2023 | UNITS ARRANGED. Critical introduction to key contemporary positions in urbanism to the ends of researching, representing, and designing territories that respond to the challenges of the 21st century.

• Faculty: R. Ghosn

• W 2-5 pm

Develops analytical skills to lead a successful technology implementation with an integrated approach that combines technical, economical and social perspectives.

• Professor: Zuber 

Fall 2023 | Apply a dynamic systems-level approach and engage emerging research on efficient, sustainable, and physically and economically feasible electric power systems.

• MW 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm RECITATION: R 11

Fall 2020 | Issues in international development, appropriate technology and project implementation addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Enrollment limited by lottery; must attend first class session. 

• Faculty: Frey, Verploegen
• TR 3-5

Spring 2020 | This course pilots a new approach to humanitarian innovation, focusing on how to teach refugees and displaced the design process so that they can create technologies and tools to improve their lives.

• Faculty: Smith, Thompson
• MW 1:00-3:00

Spring 2023 | The mission of this class is to inspire and prepare students to undertake the work of making the world just. You start by exploring the nature of a just world – what ideals must you commit yourself to, and why? How are those ideals reconciled with the constraints the world ‘as it is’ imposes?

• Faculty: Manish Bhardwaj
• W 10-1

Spring 2023 | This course addresses mitigation and adaptation to climate change as it pertains to water and health. 

• Faculty: Hsu, Nam
• R 2:00-5:00PM

Spring 2023  |  This class focuses on historically and socially-informed sustainable and equitable materials design. 

• Faculty: C. Ortiz, E.F. Spero
• MW 12:30P-2:00P

Fall 2023  |  This graduate seminar reviews various energy conversion and storage technologies, and decision models for investors, policy-makers, and engineers.

• Faculty: J. Trancik

• W 2:30-5:30 pm

Spring 2023 | Explores how logistics management principles apply in dynamic, resource-constrained contexts, ranging from humanitarian crisis response to international development. Note: SCM.283/4 meet together - SCM.284 will also count for the certificate, though is not a requirement.

• Faculty: Goentzel
• MW 1-2:30