About the Sustainable Business Minor
The minor in Sustainable Business Practices provides a specific academic path for students from any college within the university to study the emerging interdisciplinary field of sustainability, and apply what they have learned in the classroom to practical field projects in communities locally or in the developing world. The goals of the program are to give students a deeper understanding of sustainability issues and the tools to address the issues in a business environment.
Curriculum
The minor in Sustainable Business Practices is a five course (20 semester hour) undergraduate interdisciplinary minor in which the D'Amore-McKim School of Business partners initially with departments in the various colleges at Northeastern. Students take three courses at Northeastern and participate in an eight-credit summer field research program focused on issues of sustainability. The first summer research program was at Earth University in Costa Rica where students explored issues of sustainability in a developing country. Current summer programs in Iceland and Costa Rica focus on specific issues relevant to sustainability, such as alternative energy systems, rainforest management, sustainable food supply, and green building design and construction.
To complete the interdisciplinary minor, students take three courses focused on sustainability and complete an eight semester-hour field research project.
Required Courses:
FINA2720: Sustainability in the Business Environment
8-credit Field Program (currently Costa Rica or Iceland)
Costa Rica:
ENTR3326: Sustainability in the Latin American Business Environment
ENTR3328: Field Research in Sustainable Business
Iceland:
ENTR3336: Resource Management and Renewable Energy in Iceland
ENTR3338: Field Research in Sustainable Energy
Elective Courses (choose 2 with no more than 3 of the 5 courses in any one college):
ENVR1101: Environmental Science
ENVR1112: Environmental Geology
ENVR1120: Oceans and Coasts
ENVR1200: Dynamic Earth
ENVR4515: Sustainable Development
BIOL1145: Environment and Humankind
CIVE2334: Environmental Engineering
CIVE4566: Design for Sustainable Transportation: European and U.S. Perspectives
ECON3423: Environmental Economics
HIST2320: Wealth and Poverty
ME4680: Energy Systems
PHIL1180: Environmental Ethics
PHYS1132: Energy, Environment, and Society
POLS2395: Environmental Politics
SOCL1246: Environment and Society
Students may take one elective course for the minor at an NU-sanctioned study abroad program.