Online Certificate
Environmental Leadership
Now, more than ever, the world is ready for leaders who can tackle complex environmental challenges.
The graduate certificate of advanced study in Environmental Leadership equips decision-makers, managers, facilitators, advocates, and community leaders with the skills and understanding to address complex environmental challenges. Participants in the program will develop their capacities to find common ground among diverse points of view, to advance decision making that considers both scientific knowledge and deeply held values, and to facilitate cooperation across social, organizational, and administrative boundaries.
Get to know the program
Students in our fully online program will develop leadership skills in the following areas:
- Support individuals and groups in achieving collective impact without compromising deeply held values
- Facilitate reflective, adaptive, and deliberative decision-making in the context of uncertain science and divergent agendas
- Select from a palette of tools, methods, and approaches to develop answers to ill-structured problems
- Map the institutional context of a problem and develop a strategy for the inclusion of key stakeholders in the problem-solving process
- Support the inclusion of the people affected by environmental problems in the environmental problem-solving process
- Identify applicable local, regional, national, or international policies and the processes by which they are made and changed
- Navigate the challenges to communication across different ways of knowing and valuing
Certificate requirements
The graduate certificate in Environmental Leadership requires the completion of three courses:
Concepts and tools of environmental philosophy and ethics, with a focus on application to current issues in environmental problem-solving. Special attention to the role of language in questions of environmental ethics and decision making.
Examination of the dynamic relationships present in the creation and implementation of environmental policies. Considers the roles of the state, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations. Explores background and implications of recent trends in environmental governance.
Provides a student with fundamental theories and techniques for developing and applying citizen participation strategies as they relate to environmental decision-making.
All courses are offered online and designed to accommodate working professionals’ schedules. Course activities include readings, instructor-developed video presentations and podcasts, guided exercises, online discussions, and completion of class exercises toward a final project. Students regularly engage with the professor in online discussions, synchronous learning sessions, and phone or online office hours.
ESF's Graduate Certificate in Environmental Leadership provided an infusion of Knowledge
and skills that enhanced my credibility in the work I do in corporate sustainability
marketing and communications."
Jon Paul Buchmeyer, EVP Managing Director, M Booth, New York, N.Y.
We understand flexibility is important.
If you’re not ready to commit to the full certificate program, you can enroll in just
one course for now and take the others
later by registering as a visiting student.
Faculty
Dr. Paul Hirsch
Associate Professor, Environmental Studies
pahirsch@esf.edu
Paul Hirsch is a recognized expert in his field. A frequent publisher in peer-reviewed journals, he is also sought after by main-stream publications for his expertise and views on sustainability. For example, in a recent article in Women’s World Daily Hirsch discussed his views on “consumers, collaboration and creativity.”
Hirsch has played a facilitative role in a variety of sustainable change processes, both in the United States and internationally, working for organizations from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to the Tanzanian Department of Wildlife Management, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, and the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies in Vietnam.
Dr. Hirsch has served as a Board Member with the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, a Senior Research Fellow with the National Council for Science and the Environment, and a Fellow with Planet Forward at George Washington University. He teaches courses in environmental ethics, policy, and decision-making.
Master of Professional Studies
Take your certificate to the next level:
Complete all three of ESF’s online graduate certificates — plus a capstone project — to earn a Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in Environmental Leadership, Justice, and Communication.
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