Making Environmental Decisions The Open University UK

Overview

Many decisions and actions, both individual and collective, affect our environment; yet economic and political considerations often dominate.

You will explore a contemporary case of environmental decision making concerning fracking, as well as further examples from different parts of the world around water, energy, agriculture, forestry and climate change. You will also be able to consider an environmental decision-making situation of your own choosing, through the development of a project.

Vocational relevance

• Environmental decision making as an activity is key to underpinning the concepts and responsibilities in the processes of environmental management. This Making Environmental Decisions programme offered by The Open University UK is distinctive in its explicit use of systems theories in its conceptual framework and in its focus on decision making. 

• This systemic approach recognises and makes sense of the highly interconnected and complex challenges that many environmental managers face in the decisions they take. 

• These challenges include working with multiple and often conflicting perspectives of stakeholders and issues of sustainability, biodiversity and quality of life. 
• Systems theories are well recognised as useful in many management traditions, particularly where the issues of management are as much about people as they are about their environment. 

• The systems skills you can expect to develop in this module also have wider vocational relevance beyond environmental management.