School Sustainability Officer Certification
LEVEL 4 HIGHER CERTIFICATION course
Designed for: Business Managers, Bursars, Facility Managers, Maintenance Managers
Delivery: Online, over 8 weeks
Dates: Fixed schedule. See below
Commitment: 8–12 hours of self-paced learning per week, entirely online.
Investment: US$2,450
About this course
Increasingly, businesses recognise the need to respond to global pressures such as climate change, resource scarcity, and social inequalities. The concept of ‘sustainability’ is no longer confined to NGOs and activists, it is now integral to ensuring that businesses can continue to operate on a planet with finite resources. The successful schools of the future will be those that proactively responded to the global challenges of today, taking advantage of innovations in mission driven thinking and operational systems to drive impactful change and gain a competitive edge.
Sustainability in education is not the sole responsibility of a designated sustainability manager. Instead, it needs to be integrated into business operations across every business function. The CNSF Certificate in Sustainable School Operational Management provides individuals working within the school sector with a working knowledge of key areas of sustainability management, covering what sustainability is, why it is important from an economic, social and environmental angle, and how a schools can go about integrating it into their operations to help their organization achieve mission alignment and operational efficiency.
What this course covers
Over eight weeks, you’ll gain verifiable and relevant knowledge of sustainability, centred on the notion that sustainability is integral to ensuring businesses stay resilient in a changing world while delivering benefits to both stakeholders and society.
Guided by leading experts, you’ll investigate the argument for sustainability, how to integrate sustainability across areas of operation, the role of innovative planning, and technology in facilitating a sustainable school, and how to effectively communicate sustainability strategies and goals to internal and external stakeholders. This will also be put into practice through the development of your personalised action plan for overcoming the barriers and seizing the opportunities to create meaningful change within your context.
What you’ll learn
Orientation Module: Welcome to your Online Campus
You’ll be welcomed to the course, while exploring the navigation and tools of your Online Campus. Be alerted to key milestones in the learning path, and review how your results will be calculated and distributed.
You’ll be required to complete your student information data, confirm your certificate delivery address, and submit a digital copy of your passport/identity document.
Module 1: Sustainability challenges and opportunities
The global state, what needs to change, and how to bridge the sustainability gap through rewiring the economy.
- Identify the key systems pressures and trends that are affecting the economy and society
- Discuss the impact of industrialisation and population growth on the widening gap between the rich and the poor
- Identify the impact and dependencies of the private sector on natural and social capital
- Identify the key scientific findings that highlight the need to act on climate change and the degradation of natural capital
- Discuss how economic, social, and environmental challenges can only be met through rethinking the current growth model
- Illustrate how government, business, and finance each individually, and in collaboration, have a role to play in delivering sustainable outcomes
- Investigate the impact of current global economic, social, and environmental pressures on business in a global context
Module 2: The business case for leadership and action
Why sustainability is good for schools and the importance of good leadership in achieving change.
- Discuss the sustainability-related risks and opportunities that schools are currently facing and the commercial imperative for sustainability
- Show how schools as businesses can create shared value through their operations and supply chain
- Illustrate how sustainability initiatives act as a driver for innovation and competitive advantage
- Debate the role of schools in promoting sustainable development
- Contrast the different perspectives on sustainability leadership
- Debate why there is a perceived shortfall in leaders to champion sustainability within educational organisations
- Argue the business case for sustainability for your own organisation
Module 3: Organizational assessment of current operations
Understanding your current context and the measurement tools required to build data based models, generating picture of current organizational position.
- Explore the data required to build a clear picture of your organization’s current profile
- Collect actual and historical data and understand the limitations of both this data and the data collection process
- Use tools to build a detailed understanding of the major areas of organisational focus
- Understand the limitations of the modelling tools
- Debate the benefits of building a communicable big picture story to inform organizational change
Module 4: The levers that facilitate change
Faciliting change through operational, behavioural and policy levers.
- Identify the range of potential levers of change that could be applied to achieve sustainability goals
- Recognise the range of different approaches to sustainable operations that schools can influence
- Discuss how schools can challenge current operational practices
- Identify the degree to which schools have a responsibility to educate and influence stakeholders on sustainable consumption to shape future consumption patterns
- Justify the importance of integrating sustainability across an organisation’s value chain to ensure long-term value creation
Module 5: Planning for operational efficiency and sustainability
The role of investment, design, planning, and technology in facilitating sustainable schools.
- Identify how optimisation approaches can contribute to a more sustainable business
- Identify the case for incorporating innovation into business strategy to create new sustainable business models
- Demonstrate the importance of impact and dependency measurement to track the success of sustainability initiatives
- Illustrate the importance of careful planning in the pursuit of financial, environmental, and social outcomes during design of new operational approaches
- Assess the potential of investment, design, planning, and technology to enable sustainable operational managemnt in schools
Module 6: Collaboration and partnerships
How to effectively communicate sustainability strategies and goals to internal and external stakeholders.
- Recall the importance of careful planning in the pursuit of financial, environmental, and social outcomes during design of new products and services
- Recognise the key principles that underpin effective sustainability-related communication in business
- Identify how companies can influence progressive policy and practice by demonstrating a commitment to action
- Investigate the case for organisations to invest in educational programmes to achieve their sustainability objectives
- Discuss the benefits of and challenges to effectively communicating a common narrative across a company and to its stakeholders to achieve its sustainability goals
- Identify the role of branding in achieving customer buy-in for sustainable products and services
- Identify the impact and implications of a company’s sustainability-related actions on its commercial reputation
- Defend the use of sustainability as an aspect of marketing to enhance a company’s brand and reputation
Module 7: Rewiring your business approach
How businesses can work together with corporate, government, and non-profit actors to bring about large-scale change in the sustainability space.
- Recognise the different forms and functions of contemporary business partnerships
- Discuss the risks and opportunities associated with business-business and business-other partnerships and the efforts to measure their success
- Apply stakeholder and context mapping, and partnership tools theory to a practical business scenario
- Asses the opportunities that come from collaborating with key stakeholders and entering into partnerships to create new value
Module 8: Pedagogy, mission and efficiency... telling the story
Learn how to be an effective change agent, overcome barriers to change, obtain networking support, and create a personalised sustainability action plan.
- Explain your role as a change agent within your organisation or sphere of influence
- Identify the barriers to adopting operational change and taking action within your organisation
- Illustrate the importance of gaining internal support for overcoming barriers to organisational culture change
- Investigate different approaches to financing your sustainability strategies
- Identify members within your network that can assist you in influencing sustainability-related change within your organisation
- Investigate a range of support mechanisms beyond your existing network that would help you be more effective in your current role
- Develop an action plan for leveraging your support network to reach your personal sustainability objectives within your organisation or sphere of influence
- Reflect on how your views on sustainability have changed since the start of the course
Who should take this course?
Sustainability is the responsibility of all members of an organisation and can no longer be designated to a single role. This online short course is therefore aimed at professionals from fields associated with leading the operations of educational establishments. This course has been designed to specifically meet the needs of school Business Managers, Facility Managers, COOs, Bursars & Maintenance Managers but may also be of significant interest to School Leaders and school Environment or Sustainability Coordinators.
You’ll be given the tools to adopt a practical approach to sustainability challenges by developing a unique action plan for your context. This not only highlights current global pressures and megatrends affecting the business of education, but also gives you the knowledge and confidence to help colleagues and other stakeholders adapt and identify new sustainable social, economic, and environmental opportunities.
This course is for you if you want to?
Drive Change
Enhance your leadership skills and learn new tools to effectively argue the business case for sustainability.
Improve your school
Build a practical action plan for overcoming barriers and seizing the opportunities to embed sustainability in your school.
Build you team
Enhance your leadership skills and learn new tools to effectively argue the business case for sustainability.
Validate your knowledge
Get proof of your competencies by earning a certificate of completion from the CNSF Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
About the certificate
Upon successful completion of the course, you’ll earn a certificate of completion from a world-leading sustainability institution, the CNSF Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
Assessment is continuous and based on a series of practical assignments completed online. In order to be issued with a certificate, you’ll need to meet the requirements outlined in the course handbook. The handbook will be made available to you as soon as you begin the course.
Your certificate will be issued in your legal name and sent to you upon successful completion of the course, as per the stipulated requirements.
Who you will learn from
This subject matter expert from the CNSF Institute for Sustainability Leadership guides the course design and appears in a number of course videos, along with a variety of experts in the the associated fields.
Neil is the Executive Director at the Carbon Neutral School Foundation and is one of the world’s leading experts on efficiently decarbonization school operations.
He has extensive knowledge and experience in working with schools across the globe on sustainability opportunities and challenges, helping them to understand the power of putting a 21st century approach to seeing mission, vision, operational efficiency and sustainability at the heart educational their establishment.
Course content from:
How you’ll learn
Every course is broken down into manageable, weekly modules, designed to accelerate your learning process through diverse learning activities:
- Work through your downloadable and online instructional material
- Interact with your learning facilitator through weekly discussions
- Enjoy a wide range of interactive content, including video lectures, infographics, polls, and more
- Apply what you learn each week to quizzes and ongoing project submissions, culminating in a personalised sustainability action plan for your organisation
Technical Requirements
Basic requirements
In order to complete this course, you’ll need a current email account and access to a computer and the internet, as well as a PDF Reader. You may need to view Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and read and create documents in Microsoft Word or Excel.
Browser requirements
We recommend that you use Google Chrome as your internet browser when accessing the Online Campus. Although this is not a requirement, we have found that this browser performs best for ease of access to course material. This browser can be downloaded here.
Additional requirements
Certain courses may require additional software and resources. These additional software and resource requirements will be communicated to you upon registration and/or at the beginning of the course. Please note that Google, Vimeo, and YouTube may be used in our course delivery, and if these services are blocked in your jurisdiction, you may have difficulty in accessing course content. Please check with an Enrolment Advisor before registering for this course if you have any concerns about this affecting your experience with the Online Campus.
Current course enrolment options
Take a look at current course availability. If you on’t see what you are looking for or are interested in a custom start time, just get in touch.
15th April Start
– Limited Availability –
- Last spaces available
1st May Start
– Spaces Currently Available –
- Filling fast!
School Based
– Custom Start Time –
For schools with 3 or more interested participants. Course fee reduction.
1st June Start
– Full –
- Cancelations Only
15th June Start
– Spaces Currently Available –
- Additional course due to high demand
1st July Start
– Limited Availablity –
- Filling fast!
1st August Start
– Spaces Currently Available –
- Filling fast!
New courses become available monthly and approximately 6 months in advance…
More way to learn…
Building a better way of saving money, time & our world
initial school workshopDesigned for: School CFOs, Business Managers, Bursars, Facility Managers, Maintenance Managers and their teamsDelivery: Live with workshop leader. OnlineDates: Flexible. Arranged with schoolLength: 1 school dayInvestment: US$1,750About this...
