SL2539 Foundations for Strategic Sustainable Development

Content

The course contains:

• Sustainability challenges such as climate change, reduced biological diversity, eutrophication, and reduced trust and increasing inequality in society.
• A structuring and coordinating methodology for strategic sustainable development (FSSD).
• Scientific foundations for ecological and social sustainability such as scientific laws, biogeochemical cycles, theories of human needs, social resilience and trust theory.
• Concepts, methods and tools for analysis, assessment, reporting, follow-up and planning within the area of sustainability (such as ecological footprints, factor X, zero emissions, ISO 14001, planetary boundaries, etc.) and how they relate to the FSSD.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding

• Describe and reflect on society’s sustainability challenges and their underlying causes.
• Describe and reflect on the major components of a methodology for strategic sustainable development (FSSD).
• Describe and explain scientific concepts relevant to Ecological Sustainability.
• Describe and explain scientific concepts relevant to Social Sustainability Identify and describe different tools, methods and concepts within the field of sustainable development and compare and contrast these against the FSSD.

Competence and skills

• Use the FSSD to structure and coordinate knowledge, concepts, methods and tools for analysis, assessment, and planning within the area of sustainability.

Judgement and approach

• Assess and critically relate to different theories, concepts, methods and tools of relevance to strategic sustainable development.

Course literature and other teaching material

Course literature and other teaching material

Learning methods

The course is given on distance. The teaching in the course includes recorded lectures, and webinars, dialogues and discussion forums in real time. The teaching also includes individual assignments, group work and reflection individually and in groups. The lectures introduce theories, concepts, methods and tools. These are deepened, applied, integrated and reflected upon through the other learning items. Teachers with many different scientific backgrounds, professional experiences and perspectives take part in the course. The students’ different educational backgrounds, professional experiences and cultural backgrounds are also taken advantage of in the learning process.

Work placement

No work placement is included in the planned learning activities. BTH is aiming for a close contact with the surrounding community when developing courses and programmes.

Teachers

Time allocation

On average, a student should study 200 hours to reach the learning outcomes.
This time includes all the various available learning activities (lectures, self studies, examinations, etc.).
This estimation is based on the fact that one academic year counts as 60 ECTS credits,
corresponding to an average student workload of 1 600 hours. This may vary individually.

Assessments

Grading

The course will be graded A Excellent, B Very good, C Good, D Satisfactory, E Sufficient, FX Insufficient, supplementation required, F Fail.

Exams

Course Evaluation

The course manager is responsible for the views of students on the course being systematically and regularly gathered and that the results of the evaluations in various forms affect the form and development of the course.