CHECK: 1st CBS-DTU-UCPH 'Certificate in Sustainability’ !

On September 4th, 2015, a most heterogeneous group of students sat together on CBS benches for the 'Sustainability Challenges 1: Systems Thinking’ class. Six months later, after following the second “applied” part of the course on ‘Specific Systems’, 18 of those future young professionals have been awarded the CBS-DTU-UCPH 'Certificate in Sustainability: Science, Technology and Business'. Be it from the students or teachers perspectives, the overall aim of those two courses was crystal clear: to develop a generation of specialist professionals who can work successfully in multi-disciplinary teams to solve the sustainability challenges of tomorrow’s society.

Thus, coordinated by the COpenhagen Sustainability Initiative (COSI) collaboration, two complementary courses (Sustainability Challenges 1: Systems Thinking / Sustainability Challenges 2: Specific Systems and Capstone Project) were designed to drive participants into applying hands-on and multi-disciplinary tools to solving the complex and multi-level sustainability challenges that business, government and civil society currently run into. In a systems thinking approach, not only mixing ideas but people was a necessity. Therefore, business, engineer, scientific students from all three universities were put together in front of teachers with diverse backgrounds and critical view on the subject: drawing from earth systems and planetary boundaries, and production systems, to green business strategies and communication mental models…

First immediate feedback underlines the overall success of the program. And, hopefully, the joint certificate now on the desk of 18 future professionals will serve not only as a symbolic reminder of an interesting class, but also as a nudging totem for effective systemic and multi-disciplinarian thinking to their day-to-day work sustainability challenges. To be continued.