Sustainability Programs for
Climate Champions

Introduction

What is a sustainability degree?

Sustainability means shared well-being on a healthy planet. Sustainable actions improve the quality of life for all people while protecting and restoring the natural ecosystems and resources on which human well-being depends. This process is called sustainable development.

Sustainability degrees blend economics, environmental science, sociology, anthropology, history, business, and more, applying much-needed interdisciplinary and systems-thinking lenses to solving social and environmental challenges. Studying sustainability fosters an understanding of our various systems, their interdependent natures, and how they interact and affect one another. And finally, because sustainability thinking is grounded in justice, it requires an inclusive and anti-racist focus.

Equity and sustainability

There is no way to achieve true sustainability without concentrating on social equity. Pursuing profits at all costs has negatively impacted the environment (natural resource depletion, pollution, worsening climate change, etc.), but it has also led to widening income inequality, an increase in health disparities, social unrest, and much more.

Aside from an intersectional environmentalism approach, any sustainability program you consider should acknowledge that systemic inequalities exist and actively work to eliminate them.

Sustainability programs must center social justice in environmental contexts and extend the focus of sustainability to human and social processes, providing a truly justice-centered education.

To lead the way to a prosperous and sustainable future, you will need to work as educators, policy change agents, and business leaders to maintain a relentless focus on rewiring the world with clean energy, redesigning every city on the earth, re-engineering production processes, re-imagining the global food system, and reinventing our systems of finance. We know how to solve these challenges, but we need collective willpower, effective leadership, and hard work to do so.

Get more information

Learn more about the Bard Graduate Programs
in Sustainability

Bard is where the next generation of sustainability leaders are formed. Here, you’ll join activists and pragmatists, idealists and scientists, innovators, and future legislators. People with business savvy and people savvy to detecting—and disrupting—business as usual.

Fill out the form below to get more information about the graduate sustainability programs we offer and how you can make your climate activism a full-time gig.

The Master’s in Environmental Education (M.Ed) program at Bard prepares educators to create an informed and engaged citizenry. Through intensive academic training, real-world professional experience, and career development opportunities, the program enables graduates to pursue successful, high-impact careers in private schools, NGOs, government and land management agencies, private land conservation organizations, museums, environmental education centers, and consulting firms.

Our approach to environmental education is different, in that we believe it must center on providing access to historically marginalized populations. We take a page from the environmental justice movement, teaching that the environment is more than just “pure nature.” It’s the ecosystem in which you live, whether urban or rural. That understanding allows us to cultivate an intersectional analysis of ecology, equity, and justice, so we can push the boundaries of inclusiveness in the environmental education field.

Bard’s MBA in Sustainability has been ranked the #1 Green MBA for three years in a row and is one of a handful of programs around the world that fully integrates a focus on mission-driven business into every course they offer. Based in New York City, the MBA cohort gathers one weekend a month for an on-campus experience; this weekend visit describes Bard’s “low residency” structure, and it works alongside an online curriculum designed for working professionals and students who want to attend Bard from anywhere in the U.S.

With an MBA in Sustainability, you’ll have the foundation of an actively anti-racist business education to help you break through existing systems and create innovative solutions to critical social, environmental, and economic challenges.

Our approach to environmental education is different, in that we believe it must center on providing access to historically marginalized populations. We take a page from the environmental justice movement, teaching that the environment is more than just “pure nature.” It’s the ecosystem in which you live, whether urban or rural. That understanding allows us to cultivate an intersectional analysis of ecology, equity, and justice, so we can push the boundaries of inclusiveness in the environmental education field.

Bard is a Leader

Why Bard has the best sustainability
masters programs

All of Bard’s sustainability graduate programs feature a focus on experiential education, through a unique year-long course in sustainability consulting (MBA) and extended, high-level professional internships (MS and M.Ed). As a matter of fact, in any given year, 30-50% of our internships in sustainability lead directly to jobs.

Graduates from Bard GPS have also been highly successful in working at the UN and in landing coveted fellowships, like the EDF Climate Corps Fellowship, which has helped to launch many into careers fighting climate change.

Bard is dedicated to cultivating leaders who break through existing systems and innovate solutions to critical social, environmental, and economic challenges. Our curricular framework teaches our graduates to incorporate social and environmental justice in the realms of business, policy, science, and education. To do this, Bard GPS is committed to being a program that is actively anti-racist—a program that supports racial, social, and gender equality. Learn more about our JEDI framework and anti-racist mission.

If that’s not enough, and you’re still wondering, “Is a sustainability degree worth it?”, flip through our alumni lookbook and see some success stories. We also offer a wide range of sustainability scholarships for our highly-driven students—domestic and international.

Finally, Bard’s world-class faculty are deeply committed to student learning. Bard was recently awarded #1 in Classroom Experience by the Princeton Review.