Sustainability

Overview

The Sustainability degree at University of New England integrates the social sciences and humanities with environmental sciences and natural resource management to give you a thorough understanding of sustainability and help you build on your experience to develop real-world strategies that work. 

By broadening your knowledge, plus honing your critical, analytical and problem-solving skills, you can advance your career while working towards finding tangible solutions for environmental and social dilemmas.

Why study the Bachelor of Sustainability with UNE?

We are the first university in Australia to offer the Bachelor of Sustainability and our course remains unique. Our degree is as innovative as the solutions required to address current problems in Australia and across the globe, and we are committed to meeting these complex challenges in thoughtful and meaningful ways.

Our approach combines a range of sustainability-oriented fields of study including environmental and resource management, sustainable development, geography, law, economics, psychology, ethics and social policy. You will learn all-encompassing perspectives on how to strategise and form solutions that will give you a professional advantage in the workplace.

We offer targeted, career-orientated majors in a broad range of specialist areas:

• Community Engagement and Development — focuses on public education, engagement and participation, working with communities to build community resilience and capacity.
• Cultural Heritage Management — focuses on Indigenous and public heritage management and working with communities to care for living culture as well as historic and archaeological heritage.
• Environmental Governance — focuses on integrating the social and environmental aspects of sustainability for environmental governance and policy, particularly in nature conservation.
• Governance and Regulation — focuses on the policy and regulatory arena, and how to harness the political, economic, social and global forces that impact communities in order to achieve sustainability.
• Environmental Resilience — focuses on achieving sustainable land management in a changing climate.
• Water Sustainability — focuses on the sustainability of water from a combined science, social/cultural, and economic perspective, to address water degradation and achieve water security.

Career outcomes

For graduates of the Bachelor of Sustainability, potential avenues for employment are endless and include the public sector, private sector and non-government fields.

Your options as a graduate may include:

• sustainability and environment officers
• policy advisers
• planning and research officers
• government planning and environment departments
• environmental protection agencies
• cultural and natural heritage management.

You could also progress your studies with a research postgraduate degree for a career in research with the CSIRO and universities.