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Educating Leadership for Sustainable Environments: International MSc Programme ‘Environmental Governance’
In 2005, the University of Freiburg launched an MSc programme on ‘Environmental Governance’ which aims at educating young leaders for sustainable environments. The programme strives to provide a thorough understanding of governance mechanisms in relation to the wise use and conservation of environmental resources. Its focus is on analysing the manifold stakeholder interpretations of sustainability and of facilitating the institutionalisation of context-effective governance arrangements that combine market, state and civil society regulation across functional, sectoral and institutional boundaries for sustainable development.
Since the Brundtland Report and UNCED, ‘sustainable development’ has become an integral rule of conduct in politics, business, and society. Nevertheless, its implementation still represents an enormous challenge as the prudent use of environmental resources is controversial for good reason: every single interpretation of sustainability represents ecological, economic and social values at others’ expense, often with irreconcilable time and spatial scales. Consequently the achievement of sustainable development ultimately depends on the reconciliation of different social perspectives regarding the wise use of environmental resources at different societal levels. Public welfare and the environment were long believed to be the sole responsibility of governments. Nowadays, the traditional hierarchical coordination by the nation-state is being replaced by network-like coordination mechanisms and market-oriented approaches often incorporating several societal levels. Blurring functional, structural and territorial boundaries are seen as the main reason for the shift from hierarchical steering by government to regulation by ‘governance arrangements’ involving private and public actors alike.
‘Environmental governance’ constitutes a very specific form of governance, namely one with a special focus on environmental issues. There are several reasons why governance has become so important in the field of environmental policy. Environmental problems are marked by a high degree of complexity, so that governance is not so much about technical optimization but more about iterativity and experimentation. Another source of intricacy is the plurality of values, interests, and world views that mark the field of environmental policy. In modern societies, people have many often conflicting values related to the functions and benefits of nature.
Educating leadership for sustainable environments thus requires a sound knowledge about global environmental and social changes, the ability to reflect on societal decision-processes from different theoretical perspectives and competing conceptual frameworks, as well as the skills to manage such decision-processes effectively.
The MSc programme ‘Environmental Governance’ (MEG), which was launched by the University of Freiburg in 2005, seeks to address these challenges. The programme’s main objective is to pursue leadership for sustainable environments. MEG is targeted at:
Future leaders with innovative ideas about environmental governance arrangements beyond the traditional functional, structural and territorial boundaries (‘sustainability designers’); and
Future leaders who embrace and understand these ideas, and are capable of finding ways to implement them in organisations, enterprises and administrations in a context-sensitive manner (‘sustainability facilitators’).
The MSc ‘Environmental Governance’ is a two year programme (120 ECTS). Teaching is not organized in classical lecture formats but rather in three-week ‘bloc modules’ (5 ECTS). With the bloc module structure, emphasis is put on group work which fosters students’ capacities for team work, case studies which promote students’ abilities for integrated, systemic thinking, as well as moderation and facilitation skills. Instruction does not involve a single lecturer but rather a team of lecturers from a broad variety of scientific disciplines hosted not solely by the Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences, but supplemented by representatives from other faculties of the University of Freiburg, as well as external research institutes and national and international partner universities and practitioners from industry, civil society and organizations for development cooperation.
Two key design principles of the MEG programme are self-reflection and the ability for reasoned argumentation. Instead of obtaining detailed instructions how the world works students rather get challenged with different certainties of scientific knowledge. With the provocative confrontation with different scientific ‘frames’ teaching does not focus on ‘know how’ but rather on ‘know why’, meaning that eventually only students themselves should draw well-informed and reasoned conclusions about the most fruitful approaches to environmental governance.
Content-wise the curriculum is built on a tripartite structure: realising – understanding – managing. At the beginning, students gain profound insights into the concept of sustainable development and different modes of governance; in addition, they become acquainted with contemporary societal trends and urgent environmental problems (‘realising’). In the following, students get an in-depth understanding of human-environment interactions; correspondingly, a wide spectrum of different analytical frameworks and theories are elucidated ranging from political ecology, environmental ethics, institutional economics, environmental law, and policy analysis to corporate governance, to name but a few (‘understanding’). Lastly, students are offered a variety of opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills in lifelike exercises; special emphasis is thereby laid on the continuous development and improvement of key qualifications necessary to design and manage social negotiation processes between market economy, government and civil society (‘managing’). One of the special features of the curriculum is the so-called ‘Student Organized Event’, i.e. a module in which students are responsible for conceptualizing, developing and organizing an annual ‘Freiburg Forum on Environmental Governance’. This international event is planned and organised by the students in a fully independent manner over the course of their first three semesters. The general aim of this exercise is for students to learn ‘hands-on’ organizational and management skills. Additionally, the event itself seeks to plant the seeds of sustainable development and wise leadership in a new generation of global citizens, namely students, junior staff from NGOs, administrations, and enterprises, but also senior personnel and the wider public.
To sum up, the MSc programme ‘Environmental Governance’ at the University of Freiburg does not take and promote a managerial approach to environmental problems. In contrary, with its tripartite structure (realising – understanding – managing) it is designed to educate sensible intermediaries and facilitators for sustainable environments.
The program has been developed with the clear ambition to be ranked among the top 10 international study programmes in the field of sustainability, society and environment worldwide. In 2006, the program was accredited by ACQUIN in accordance with international standards for higher education. In that same year, the German Academic Exchange Service decided to include MEG in its prestigious list of ‘developing countries oriented post-graduate programmes’. In 2007, the programme was awared the highly competitive ‘Higher Education Award of the State of Baden-Württemberg’. The programme’s high and growing attractiveness for students from all over the world (e.g. more than 400 online applications and about 150 full applications from 39 countries in 2009) can be taken as proof for the actuality and adequateness of its underlying educational principles. Each year, a maximum of 30 students are selected based on criteria of excellence and geographical representation (industrialized countries, countries in transition, developing countries).
MEG graduates have found jobs with international and national organisations and administrations (e.g. IUCN, national ministries, NGOs), with companies for which a commitment to the principles of sustainability has become a central strategic competitive advantage. (e.g. industry, utilities, banks), and with science and research centres.
The key innovative features of the programme are interdisciplinarity, reflexivity, and context sensitivity. As regards its disciplinary focus the programme is unique in that it fills the strategic gap between the numerous political sciences, business management and law-orientated governance programmes that have come into existence in recent years and the environment-oriented programmes provided in the natural and technical sciences. As regards its teaching approach, the programme does not take and promote a managerial approach to environmental problems. In contrary, with its tripartite structure (realising – understanding – managing) it is designed to educate sensible intermediaries and facilitators for sustainable environments.
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