Global Collaboration for Sustainability - The Food-Water-Energy Nexus in Italy

Catalog description

Environmentalist Paul Hawken challenged a class of 2009 college graduates that they would have to "figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating." That theme is at the heart of this course. While we have seen an uptick in corporate initiatives, government policies, and NGO activity related to multiple sustainability challenges in the last 10-15 years, the world remains well off track on all of the Sustainable Development Goals – which come due in 2030 – and emerging global headwinds are concerning. Our quality of life, and that of future generations, increasingly hinges on the development and implementation of sustainable solutions to the enormously complex environmental and social problems embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals -- particularly those related to the food-water-energy nexus. This course is designed to foster the thinking, and the collaborative spirit, that is needed to address these enormous problems. It involves focusing on a critical global sustainability problem with vast social, cultural, and environmental dimensions -- in this case, the need to balance global food, water, and energy needs in a manner that allows the world to feed nearly 10 billion citizens by 2050 while preserving the environment for future generations (i.e. achieving the healthy people, healthy planet balance). It also involves collaboration and the exchange of ideas between multi-disciplinary leaders from multiple countries, and perspectives on how to manage diverse views and sustainability initiatives that are extremely relevant to the success of today’s organizations (i.e. how to lead “big change” with urgency for competitive advantage).