Sustainability Science and Practice

We have an opportunity to redesign our ways of working and living so that all people – across generations and around the world – may thrive. As the global population climbs toward 10 billion, our current heavy use of natural resources to fuel development no longer works. With our current take-make-waste economic model, we would need more than three planet Earths to elevate the 2.8 billion people living with less than two dollars per day to middle-class living standards, and even more to support a thriving global population. But through high-leverage strategies, including a circular economy, transformative partnerships, and metrics of progress beyond GDP, we can transition to new sustainable systems that ensure intergenerational well-being now and into the future.

To do so, we need a new kind of leader.

We need leaders who are systems thinkers, collaborators and change agents – leaders who understand the complexities of social-environmental challenges and know how to navigate volatile and uncertain contexts, nurture relationships across divides and create enabling conditions for emergent solutions.

The Change Leadership for Sustainability Program prepares students and professionals to be this new kind of leader, capable of radically accelerating the transition to a sustainable society. Participants in our programs learn how to design and implement transformative solutions and strategies that emerge from a fundamentally new understanding of themselves, others, and the natural world.

Academic and Professional Pathways

The program integrates advanced theoretical frameworks with practical, real-world tools through two distinct educational pathways:

• Coterminal Master’s Degree in Sustainability Science and Practice (M.S. or M.A.): This program is open to eligible Stanford undergraduates from any major (including the humanities, social sciences, engineering, and natural sciences). It equips students with the specialized mindsets, knowledge, and practical competencies needed to lead complex sustainability initiatives across sectors.

• Executive Education Programs: Designed for mid-career and senior working professionals, these offerings include online courses, open-enrollment programs hosted on the Stanford campus, and customized leadership programs tailored to corporate, governmental, and institutional clients.

Core Curricular Elements

Our coterminal master’s program opens in a new tab and executive education opens in a new tab programs integrate theoretical and conceptual knowledge with practical skills and tools to develop mindsets, knowledge, and competencies in three critical areas:

• Element 1 - Understanding Complex Social-Environmental Systems: Students develop a “systems perspective,” deepening their awareness of the dynamic and interrelated nature of social-environmental systems. They explore frameworks and tools to understand, measure, and map complex social-environmental systems and their complex interactions to recognize potential feedbacks, thresholds, and unintended consequences, as well as to identify leverage points and opportunities for interventions that contribute to sustainability impact.

• Element 2 - Understanding Decision-Making and Strategies for Leading Change: Students examine the roles of diverse actors influencing change in social-environmental systems and explore strategies to align decision-making and behavior with sustainability. They explore the mindsets and approaches of transformative leaders and examine effective strategies for advancing sustainability across sectors. Students develop decision-making skills in complex and uncertain contexts, use metrics and evaluation approaches aligned with sustainability goals, cultivate leadership orientations, and practice effective communications and storytelling approaches. 

• Element 3 - Designing Innovations with Impact at Scale: Students examine the roles of diverse actors influencing change in social-environmental systems and explore strategies to align decision-making and behavior with sustainability. They explore the mindsets and approaches of transformative leaders and examine effective strategies for advancing sustainability across sectors. Students develop decision-making skills in complex and uncertain contexts, use metrics and evaluation approaches aligned with sustainability goals, cultivate leadership orientations, and practice effective communications and storytelling approaches.

The Sustainability Leadership Practicum

To integrate and internalize core lessons from the SUST curriculum, each coterminal master’s student completes a 120-hour practicum project of their design, collaborating on a complex sustainability challenge with an outside partner and working through the constraints often faced by decision-makers and leaders. Students apply the curriculum’s leadership mindsets, knowledge, and skills to this practical experience and present their final analysis and reflections to faculty and peers.