Stand-alone Courses
Stand-alone courses in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability
Our department offers many stand-alone distance courses in the field of strategic leadership towards sustainability. Education is such an important part of sustainable development and we take great care to design and develop our courses to achieve genuine learning. In most of our courses, this means live interaction with our teaching staff, lots of feedback and group projects. We look forward to you joining us on the learning journey in whichever course might suit you best.
“My biggest take away from this week is sitting in on the introductory seminar with more than 100 other fellow humans. As the urgency of the new climate regime swept me off my feet . . . Listening to the alarming facts. But this time not feeling pushed, not treated as someone who needs to be convinced. Instead, I experienced a calm and open welcoming, offering the option of looking at things in many more ways. The climate facts are clear, the work that is needed is not about finding alternative ways to interpret them. Instead, what I experienced in the setting of this course was an opening towards alternative ways of communicating and working around them. A week in, I’m feeling hopeful about adopting an attitude that I have neither shared nor had towards the crisis so far – the learning attitude.”
– Magdalena Musiala, student SL2560
Spring Semester 2024
Environmental Management 7.5 credits
The course aims to provide basic and broad knowledge in the field of environmental management. Based on an interdisciplinary holistic integrated in a practical way, ecological, and economic aspects of the tools that can be used such as eco products, environmental accounting, and environmental management throughout. The course aims to teach how to create conditions for sustainable development, for example by increasing eco-efficiency (better sparing with resources) via the management system.
Introduction to sustainable development 7.5 credits
Vad är hållbarhet och hur kan vi beskriva hållbar utveckling? Detta är begrepp som numera används på alla nivåer i samhället men som trots detta är begrepp som oftast saknar tydlighet. Denna kurs ger dig grundläggande kunskaper om hur hållbarhet kan definieras och kunskaper och förmågor i hur vägen dit, dvs en hållbar utveckling, strategiskt kan planeras. Kursen ger också inblick i hur olika för hållbar utveckling essentiella system, såsom energisystemet och livsmedelssystemet relaterar till denna utveckling.
Product-Service System Design for Sustainability 7.5 credits
Sustainable design is more than designing products that are environmentally and socially manufactured. How does people’s behaviour during usage stage and at the end-of-life of product life cycle affect sustainability? How can people’s needs be satisfied without ownership of products, for example by services? How can different stakeholders in a value chain interact on a system level for strategic sustainable development? We will look at these questions in this course. You will learn and apply advanced sustainable design strategies and design product-service system (PSS) concepts in a group project. You will also conduct sustainability analysis on your design concepts.
Social Sustainability in Product- and Service Development 7.5 credits
Do you want to learn more about social sustainability and develop the necessary skills to work with social sustainability related questions in a technological environment? Product and service development plays a key role in society’s transition to sustainability and the social dimension of sustainability is often forgotten. By product and service development we mean development of any type of offering, including physical products, digital products, services, and any mixture of these. Improved knowledge and skills in how to integrate social sustainability goals in product and service development makes more optimised, whole-systems solutions possible. By the end of this course you will be able to analyze social sustainability impacts of products and services from a strategic perspective and identify strategic solutions to them.
Summer Semester 2024
Bio-inspired Innovation for Sustainability 3 credits
The purpose of the course is to introduce and train students in bio-inspired innovation for sustainability. In an intense summer course with pre- and post work, the students will learn about bio-inspired innovation through hands-on application. In project work they will learn to use and create bio-inspired design solutions to address current sustainability challenges.
Please note that the course runs from June 25 through August 17, 2024.
There will be four 2-hour evening online sessions on June 25, July 2, 8, 9, 2024.
The immersion week takes place in Karlskrona, Sweden, August 12-17, 2024.
You can find more details in the following brochure: Bio Inspired Innovation Flyer 2024
“A heartfelt thank you to Dana Bergman and the entire team at Blekinge Institute of Technology for the incredible journey through the Foundations for Strategic Sustainable Development course. The past 3 months has been an enriching experience, filled with invaluable insights that have expanded my understanding and shaped my perspective on sustainable development. Dana Bergman, your guidance has been instrumental, leading such a remarkable course.”
– Ernesto Ceron, student SL2560
Fall Semester 2024
Introduction to Sustainable Product Development 3 credits
The purpose of the course is to provide fundamental and broad knowledge in the area of sustainable product development, which means understanding how product development can contribute to strategic sustainable development of industry and society. The course also aims to provide an up-to-date picture of how companies work with sustainable product development, as well as to equip students with the ability to select and combine various supportive methods and tools to analyse, evaluate, and create solutions from a strategic sustainability perspective.
Foundations for Strategic Sustainable Development 7.5 credits
The purpose of the course is for the student to
• develop knowledge about and understanding of society’s sustainability challenges and the basic reasons for these.
• develop knowledge about and understanding of a structuring and coordinating methodology for strategic sustainable
development, including its scientific foundations.
• develop skills in applying the methodology and in utilizing it in relation to commonly cited concepts, methods and
tools of relevance to Strategic Sustainable Development.
• develop skills in presenting and academic writing.
Theory of Change for Sustainability Transformations 7.5 credits
This course aims to provide participants with a foundation in systems thinking, which will be used as a basis to explore different theories about how sustainability transformations can happen. The course will focus on bringing theory to the practical realities of how individuals can make change in business, organisations, and other social(-ecological) systems. The course also aims to equip course participants with the skills to apply ‘theory of change’-methodology to a real-life sustainability challenge; an understanding of a range of tools, methods, and concepts used to support change-making for sustainability transformations; and a methodology to assess which of these are best suited to different contexts.
Sustainable Product Development 7.5 credits
Building on their knowledge and skills from previous courses, students will learn how to (1) perform sustainability analysis in product development and (2) generate ideas for improvement based on the analysis. They will learn (3) advantages and disadvantages of various approaches to the above and (4) how to integrate these approaches into concept development. Competence in sustainable product development is in demand in industry and society. The course develops theoretical understanding and applied skills at the intersection of two of BTH’s areas of expertise – sustainability and product development.
Strategic planning for organizational sustainability transitions 7.5 hp
The purpose of the course is for the student to develop in-depth knowledge and understanding of methodology for strategic sustainability transitioning in organizations.