Key Competencies

Integrated Problem Solving Competency
Students will be able to apply different problem-solving frameworks to sustainability challenges, and develop viable, inclusive, and equitable solutions that promote sustainable development, by integrating the other competencies and holding tension between the social, economic and environmental aspects of complex adaptive systems.

Systems Thinking Competency 
Students will be able recognize and understand relationships; to investigate complex adaptive systems, including their social, environmental, and economic connections and emergent properties, to discern how systems are embedded within different domains and scales; and to consider uncertainty when making decisions.

Anticipatory Competency 
Students will be able to understand and evaluate multiple futures-possible, probable and desirable; to create their own vision of the future; to apply forecasting and backcasting to understand sustainability challenges, to apply the precautionary principle to assess the consequences of action; and to consider risk and change.

Normative Competency
Students will be able to understand and reflect on the norms and values that underlie their actions including bias, culture, and their role in the local and global society; and to negotiate sustainability values, principles, goals, and targets, in a context of conflicts of interests, potential trade-offs, uncertain knowledge and contradictions. 

Strategic Competency
Students will be able to collectively develop innovative actions that further sustainability at the local level and further afield and create plans that include project scope, targets, goals, milestones, and assessment measures. 

Collaboration Competency / Interpersonal
Students will be able to motivate, enable, and facilitate collaborative processes for sustainability initiatives. This includes the ability to learn from others; to understand and respect the needs, perspectives and actions of others (empathy); to build and expand trusting relationships, to adapt messaging for different audiences to gain buy-in, to develop collective visions, and to adjust roles and address conflict to achieve shared goals.  

Intra Personal Competency
The ability to reflect on one’s own emotions, desires, thoughts, and behaviors. Acting with awareness and integrity and regulating, motivating, and continually evaluating one’s actions, while seeking opportunities for continuous learning, and drawing on and developing emotional intelligence and resilience.

Implementation Competency

The ability to realize a planned sustainability strategy or project including, tracking metrics and milestones, employing a clearly defined process for engaging stakeholder, iterating throughout the project including potential pivots, and engaging in continuous learning.