ences|Harvard Kennedy School
Spring 2026
CLIMATE AND SUSTAINABILITY
COURSES
Climate change is an urgent and multifaceted challenge facing all of society.
Harvard faculty teach an expanding array of courses examining the many dimensions of this shared challenge. Explore courses in climate and sustainability ranging from economics and English to public health and climate science.
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460 Results
Thu, Jan 1, 1970
DPI 247
Justice by Means of Democracy
In this course, students explore an alternative theory of justice that places greater emphasis on democracy, and look at concrete examples of the application of this alternative policy-making framework to concrete domains like housing, good jobs and the economy, education, and climate.
SCI 6379
Plants and Placemaking - New Ecologies for a Rapidly Changing World
In the face of crises spanning pandemics, political turmoil, and the rapid degradation of the planet’s natural systems—all within a backdrop of myriad inequalities—the power of plants in shaping human experience has been proven. Erosive pressures associated with changes to climate have placed global ecologies and plant communities under assault, yet abundant and resilient life still adapts and flourishes in most places. This course will encourage students to observe these patterns and to learn from context so that we can place the healing and restorative qualities of plants, essential to sustaining life on this planet, in the foreground of our work as landscape architects.
SES 5526
Strategic Sustainability: Building Resilient and Responsible Enterprises
As enterprise-level activities are increasingly scrutinized for their role in ecological degradation, social inequities, and economic disruptions, organizations must navigate a landscape where accountability extends well beyond financial performance. Students will examine how businesses can address material risks – from climate shocks and regulatory pressures to stakeholder expectations – while identifying opportunities to build resilience and competitive advantage through sustainability.
Indigenous Philosophies for the Technological Age
The future of humanity depends on how we will manage to live with the technological revolutions that happen all around us. This is a good time to bring voices into the discussion that have long been excluded from impactful discussions about the future of humanity: voices of indigenous people, whose received wisdom reflects millennia of sustainable living in their respective contexts. Some of this wisdom has been worked out in distinctive indigenous philosophies, and the focus of this class is to explore some of these philosophies and assess what lessons they teach for the technological age. A focus is on indigenous authors from the U.S., but we encounter authors and perspectives from all continents.
IGA 455
Climate Leadership: Persuasion, Advocacy and Negotiation
In this perilous moment in human history, the world desperately needs leaders with the courage, drive and hardball political skills to fight climate change and help restore the natural world. Environmental leaders must also recognize how marginalized communities suffer disproportionately from pollution and climate change. Leadership is difficult in any enterprise, but it is especially difficult for environmental leaders who face opponents with vastly more power and money.
9/4/24
uman rights; and the meaning of life. Engaging with indigenous perspectives on these matters is likely to have a transformative effect on how one approaches the big questions of the 21st century.
EDU A650, PHIL 166I, DPI 210, DES 3520
Thu, Jan 1, 1970
Thu, Jan 1, 1970
BGP 204
Food Policy
This class will examine the global food system and how it can meet the caloric needs of a growing population with higher caloric demands.
MLD 605M
Systems Thinking and Supply Chain Management: Climate, Poverty and Human Rights
This course provides students with the theory and practice to design, operate and sustain supply chains that deliver public services.
PRO 7445
Urban Stack: Practice Methods for a Complex World
This course addresses the practice of design as it inevitably confronts and interacts with infrastructures of policy, technology, and finance.