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• Postgraduate study:
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• Research
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• Choose Kingston
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Environmental Management

• Module code: GG7045
• Year: 2018/9
• Level: 7
• Credits: 30
• Pre-requisites: None
• Co-requisites: None

Summary

Sustainable Environmental Management (SEM) aims to achieve economic, environmental and social goals. These are underpinned in law and through legal agreements, with scales ranging from international to national. The ‘stock of natural capital' must not be depleted, nor otherwise must the ability of the environment to recover from damage be compromised. SEM must provide for ecosystem services, both now and in future generations. The module explores the motivations for, and paradigms of, ‘sustainable development' at scales ranging from local to global including its grounding in economics, the social environment, in environmental politics and policy making as underpinned by law.

Contemporary level thinking around environmental governance is explored within SEM, using case examples from the UK, EU and US, including arrangements for command and control in pollution, payment for ecosystem services, market mechanisms and voluntary action. There are associated site visits. The module selects as major case examples from waste management (including energy recovery) and water management at the catchment scale. The module will come to focus on the application of Good Practice in the business sector at the local level and describe the operation of environmental assessment and appraisal (audits and impact analysis tools) such as Environmental Auditing, Eco-Design and Management and Environmental Audit (EMAS,) Environmental Management Systems (EMS), British Standards, Environmental Impact Assessment and Corporate Social Responsibility, Waste management and Eco-design.

Aims

• To Enhance student understanding of the theory and practice and SEM in meeting the challenges of the future as they affect society, business and economy and the ways in which they are explored and managed;

• To critically analyse the central problems addressed by environmental politics and economics, particularly in respect of waste and water management at a large scale;

• To enhance comprehension of the fundamentals of legal frameworks at all scales as they underpin environmental governance;

• To critically evaluate solution proffered in pollution management as affect sustainable development, including stakeholder issues, regulation and higher level governance.

Learning outcomes

• Clearly understand environment-society interactions for SEM including the interplay of local and regional issues.

• Critically interrogate legal processes that underpin environmental governance.

• Critically analyse governance environments through which modern SEM operates.

• Appraise the theory of externalities and their control through regulation, economic instruments and through voluntary sector action.

• Critically evaluate key issues for business and industry in relation to the environment and sustainability agenda including evaluation and completion of Environmental Audit and Environmental Management Systems

• Demonstrate familiarity with the complex and interwoven links between public and private actors, governments and regulators, economic and social factors, national resources, environmental concerns, and individual behaviours.

Curriculum content

• Views of human-environment interactions, deep ecology and sustainable development,

• Major issues driving sustainable development including and pollution, deforestation and habitat degradation. Key economic sectors under pressure include waste management and water supply at the catchment scale

• Legal agreements and legislation from national to international, as it affects environmental management

• Basic economic theory and the application of environmental economics

• Policy instruments aimed at ‘internalising externalities' (pollution and environmental degradation), voluntary action, market-based incentives, command and control, polluter pays principle and payment for ecosystem services

• Methodologies and techniques currently available to manage the impact of business and industry on the environment including Environmental Management Services (EMS), especially those relevant to Small and Medium Enterprises SMEs) and the wider community

• Outline the process of Environmental Impact Assessment

• Case examples within SEM focused on water management at the catchment scale and waste management including energy recovery

Teaching and learning strategy

The course integrates Environmental Economics, Sustainable Environmental Management Tools and Methodologies considering waste and water. The module is delivered through lectures, seminars, practical work and site visits. All are related to natural resource management, environmental economics, management and EMS as applied to SMEs.

Lectures will explore the key issues of both theoretical approaches in economics and basic environmental politics, scales of focus, application of practical topics while students are invited to reinforce and apply what they have learned in presentations and seminars. This teaching and learning strategy will ensure students understand theoretical issues, economic and managerial instruments and can apply these to theoretical and practical learning in the work situation. There is no formal examination.

Breakdown of Teaching and Learning Hours

Assessment strategy

These assessments are designed to integrate theoretical learning (policy, law, economic and sustainable development theory) with practical applications in environmental auditing.

Summative assessments consists of a Essay on environmental sustainable development (35%) and aims to integrate the theory of sustainable development with the legal component delivered as part of the course in the context of material delivered in lectures. Additionally, an Environmental Audit report (35%) that tests knowledge delivered in lectures, develops collaborative skills, re-enforces practical and legal/ regulatory aspects of the course, as well as develop reporting and presentation skills. A written ‘seen exam' (30%) will encapsulate the components of the taught part of the course.

Mapping of Learning Outcomes to Assessment Strategy (Indicative)

Elements of Assessment

Achieving a pass

It IS NOT a requirement that any major element of assessment is passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module. BIBLIOGRAPHY (INDICATIVE)

Bibliography core texts

This module is research-based and as such students are not expected to own a core text book. Staff will encourage students to focus on the use of recent research articles & suitable journals. Guidance on topic-specific reading, including journal literature, will be issued with lecture or topic summaries which will accompany each section of the module.

Bibliography recommended reading

• Anderson DA (2010), Environmental Economics and Natural resource Management, 3rd edition, Routledge, London.

• Barrow C (2006), Environmental Management for Sustainability, 2nd edition, Routledge, London.

• S. Bell and D. McGillivray and O. Pederson (2013) Environmental Law. Oxford, University Press.

• P. Birnie, A. Boyle and C. Redgewell (2009) International Law and the Environment 3rd ed. Oxford, University Press.

• Brady J (Ed.) (2008), Environmental Management in Organizations: The IEMA Handbook Routledge, London.

• Diamond J (2006), Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Penguin, London.

• Environmental impact assessment: A guide to procedures Available as Free PDF http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/environmentalimpactassessment (accessed 21 Oct 2009).

• Farmer A (2007), Handbook of Environmental Protection and Enforcement, Earthscan, London.

• Harris F (2004), Sustainable development. In: F. Harris (Ed.) Global Environmental Issues, John Wiley, Chichester.

• Lovelock J (2010), The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning, Penguin, London.

• Scott Cato M (2009), Green Economics Earthscan, London.