BUU11570 Enacting Sustainable Development 2024/25

(5 ECTS)

Lecturer:                

Norah Campbell        

E-mail: norah.campbell@tcd.ie

Office Hours: Mondays 10.30-11.30am

Pre- Requisite: None

Module Description

Businesses in the 21^st century will operate with an increasingly stressed ecological environment – a complex situation that requires new competencies. This module introduces you to Sustainable Development – the planetary boundaries and the social foundations within which humanity needs to operate to avert breakdown. Designed over the past year by a team from Science, Psychology, Business, Law, Medicine, Engineering faculty and students, the module is transdisciplinary and problem-based. In other words, it focuses on foundational concepts that span all disciplines – systems,  frames of perception, justice, and growth. In this module students develop ways of thinking and doing that will enable them to address complex sustainability problems and develop equitable solutions that promote sustainable development and a liveable future for all.  

Rationale

Living and working sustainably is the greatest challenge of the 21^st century. Sustainability is an objective that transverses disciplines and professions; the complexity and multidimensionality of sustainability challenges means no discipline alone can address them. This module takes a wide, transdisciplinary lens on sustainability, introducing students to perspectives and concepts from earth systems science, health sciences, engineering, economics, politics, and human thought and behaviour. Through this module, students will develop literacy with fundamental scientific concepts and data that signal the health of our planet and its ecosystems – on which all human activity – including business, depends. Students will develop new competencies – knowledge, skills, and attitudes –  that will enable them to apply this learning to respond to real-world sustainability problems, challenges, and opportunities. Students will learn new ways to see and to think using a global lens – enabling them to question, reconcile, negotiate, and envision so that they can become active leaders in a transformative transition to a sustainable and just future.

Learning and Teaching Approach

There are 5 themes. Each theme has one two-hour lecture, and a small (15 person) seminar. There is reading and viewing work to do before and after the lecture. The themes are:

• Planetary boundaries and doughnut economics
• Systems complexity and future forecasting (we work on the case of nitrogen – the foundation of food and life)
• Worldviews and values for sustainable development and climate justice
• Problem framing: prevention, mitigation, and adaptation
• Misinformation related to sustainable development

A 2-hour workshop follows each lecture, where you participate with your small seminar group, guided by your seminar leader. Each workshop is problem-based, and you will develop certain competences.

They are:

• Systems thinking: the ability to analyse and understand complex relationships and systems across different spatial (local to global) and temporal scales.
• Anticipatory competency: envisioning and evaluating possible, probable and desirable futures; anticipating the consequences of actions; understanding risks.
• Normative competency: analysing and negotiating norms, values, principles, goals, and targets for sustainability.
• Strategic competency: working collectively to design and implement actions, transitions, and transformative governance strategies for sustainability.
• Collaboration competency: understanding and respecting the needs, perspectives and actions of others to enable collaboration; conflict management and participatory problem solving.
• Critical thinking competency: questioning and reflecting on norms, practices, opinions, and positionality.
• Self-awareness competency: reflecting on one’s own role in the local community and global society; self-evaluation and self-regulation.
• Integrated problem-solving competency: integrating across competences to apply different problem-solving frameworks to complex sustainability problems and develop viable, inclusive and equitable solution options that promote sustainable development.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Recognise that we are part of a complex global system and that our actions can influence its fate.
• Question the psychosocial foundations of sustainability
• Formulate challenges to sustainability as problems, and develop approaches for preventing, mitigating, or adapting to these problems
• Explain risks of misinformation related to sustainable development
• Work collectively to design actions, transitions, and transformative strategies for a sustainable future.

Relation to Degree

This foundational module provides the bedrock of thinking and competencies that will be developed in later years. It gives you the language and frameworks to understand the relationships between the economic, environmental, social and personal world. The central Trinity Business School’s undergraduate learning goal is to “Develop awareness of the need for strategic adaptability and a systems-level approach to rapidly changing natural, social and technological environments, and become equipped to work creatively within organisations to address organisational issues and/or grand challenges.” This module begins students on that journey.

Workload

Textbooks and Resources

The module opens you to new types of reading – academic journal articles, scientific reports, video interviews and documentaries with experts, and policy reports. These will be in the ‘required reading’ folder under each theme – where you will also see which to do before or after the lecture. 

Required core course textbook

None.

General Extra Readings

Each theme will have a folder of additional materials in the Blackboard module folder.

Student Preparation for the Module

Attendance is mandatory for both lecture and workshop. You must read and view the materials in advance.

Course Communication

Please post any module questions to the Blackboard discussion board.

Please note that all course related email communication must be sent from your official TCD email address. Emails sent from other addresses will not be attended to.

If you have a personal issue, please chat to your Seminar Leader. If you do not get a response from your seminar leader, please email Declan on cahilld1@tcd.ie and then if no reply then contact norah.campbell@tcd.ie

Assessment

This module has two assessment parts.

Part I: Workshop attendance and participation (65%)

This module requires attendance and participation in order to achieve the competencies above. Specifically this means punctual attendance with the pre-workshop work done, active, positive and reflective contributions to the tasks within them, empathetic peer interaction, leadership when required, and post-workshop submission. Grades for this part of the assessment are Very Good (70%), Good (60%) and Non-satisfactory (0 or 30%, depending on circumstances). Your seminar leader will give you feedback on how you are doing mid-way through.

Part 2: In person test (35%)

At the end of the semester, you will sit a multiple-choice test. This test will consist of 45 multiple-choice questions in 45 minutes which will be drawn from the course material and lectures. Sample MCQs relating to each Lecture session will be made available to students to help them assess the extent to which they understand the course material, the lectures and the lectures.