Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment MSc

University of Oxford

The MSc Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment addresses two pervasive and unmet challenges of our time: making the transition to a zero-carbon and environmentally sustainable economic model, whilst simultaneously enabling sustainable development for all. The course views these challenges through the lenses of finance, economics and enterprise – both public and private – whilst also leveraging the environmental, systems, and data sciences.

The MSc will equip current and future thought-leaders and decision-makers with the rigorous academic knowledge and applied skills needed to understand and accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon, environmentally sustainable economic model.

The objectives of the MSc are three-fold:

1. Develop a critical understanding of the nature, drivers and trajectories of climate change and economic development.

2. Examine the role of enterprise and its relationship to environmental and development challenges across a range of risks, technological innovations, investment opportunities and policy responses.

3. Enable students to integrate and apply their interdisciplinary knowledge, advanced methodological skills and science-policy-enterprise network to foster innovation and scalable progress toward net zero and sustainable development.

The Programme Learning Outcomes of the MSc will equip students with knowledge, skills and networks to understand:

• the nature, science and trajectories of the net zero and sustainable development challenge (NZSD)
• the scope and limits of innovation and the different roles of enterprise – public and private - in effective responses to NZSD
• the data and methods required to measure progress to NZSD and attribute impact, and a critical appreciation of data
• the economic frameworks, methods and tools to apply to measure the NZSD problem and accelerate progress towards it
• the broad range of socio-technical drivers that can accelerate progress to NZSD
• the theory and practice of sustainable finance and investment, and how to engage with sector stakeholders
• the drivers reshaping economical social and environmental relationships
• the scope for markets to spur conservation and investment.

In addition, the course aims to equip graduates with a range of person and professional skills; in particular, leadership competencies.

The course caters for, and is intentionally designed for – a wide range of life and career stages: just-finished undergraduates, recent graduates and early- to mid-career professionals. It combines directed teaching, self-regulated learning, structured engagement, formal assessment, and regular interaction with practitioners.

Core modules

• Climate Change and Net Zero
• Sustainable Enterprise
• New Environmental Economic Thinking
• Spaces, Infrastructure and Technology for Net Zero and Sustainable Development
• Methods and Data
• Sustainable Finance
• Socio-technical Interventions and Sustainable Law
• Systems Change, Enterprise, and Innovation
• Natural Capital, Markets and Society
• Water, Inequalities and Social Enterprise