BSc Environment and Sustainable Development

How can we reconcile economic development and environmental protection? Is globalisation bad for the environment? Why is it so difficult to address the challenges of sustainable development? These are just some of the tough questions you’ll tackle on this stimulating programme.

You’ll examine the nature, drivers and politics of sustainable and unsustainable development and look at the relationship between environmental change and human wellbeing and development. As you progress, you’ll develop the skills needed for environment and development policy and analysis.

Unlike many university courses, this programme explores these issues from a social sciences as well as a natural sciences perspective. Our teaching team brings together the world’s leading geographers and social scientists, so you’ll learn about environmental issues and sustainable development from many different viewpoints.

Across all years, you’ll have the flexibility to pursue your chosen interests and options. You can also take part in a field trip, usually overseas, in the second year.

If you would like to gain further insight into the subject we suggest that you look at one or more of the following books:

• N Castree Making Sense of Nature (Routledge, 2013).
• S Chant and C McIlwaine Geographies of Development in the 21st Century: an introduction to the Global South (Edward Elgar, 2009)
• J Elliot An Introduction to Sustainable Development (4th edition, Routledge, 2012)
• J P Evans Environmental Governance (Routledge, 2012)
• A S Goudie The Human Impact on the Natural World: past, present and future (7th edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)
• N Klein This Changes Everything: capitalism vs. the climate (Simon & Schuster, 2014)
• D Pearce and B Barbier Blueprint for a Sustainable Economy (Earthscan, 2000)
• D Simpson, M Toman and R U Ayres Scarcity and Growth Revisited (Resources for the Future, 2005)
• M Whitehead Environmental Transformations: a geography of the anthropocene (Routledge, 2014)