SLGP7115
Sustainability management systems and assessment tools
[6 CREDITS]
Introduction
This course is dedicated to developing student’s analytical skills in collecting relevant data, measuring, and tracking the environmental performance of an organization over time. Emphasis will be placed on practical approaches to improving environmental performance over time across organizational functions to support organizations in meeting their environmental and economic goals for multiple sectors.
Also, the course introduces key sustainability assessment tools to assist in resource management. Sustainable resource management requires well-informed decision making based on holistic assessment of the issue at hand. The course aims to equip students with the practical skill to apply sustainability assessment tools (Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), Material Flow Analysis (MFA), and Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)) in support of resource management at product-based system, organizational, and regional levels determine the best alternatives.
Discussions will consider the construction and implementation of an Environmental Management System (EMS) to design the integration of environmental interactions that match their specific organizational processes, which lead to the reduction of environmental impacts while increasing operating efficiency of the current internal processes and practices. Issues of continuous improvement based on ISO 14001:2015 standard and framework will also be explored. It will be linked to risk management approaches to monitor and improve environmental performance which will benefit the organization’s triple bottom line.
Combining conceptual explanations, practical approaches and a site visit, students will gain a better understanding of the rationale behind the adoption of different sustainable management and assessment tools and acquire the skills of applying these tools to analyze the industrial and urban metabolism in Hong Kong. The course will narrow the focus to businesses and urban projects to enable students to critically assess the implications.
Assessment: 100% coursework
