Graduate Certificate in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)

Learn how to assess your organization’s progress on sustainability goals.

The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Graduate Certificate focuses on the practical application of environmental, social, and governance reporting across organizations. In the certificate, you’ll learn the fundamentals of ESG components, reporting, tracking, and application.

ESG is a reporting framework used by organizations to assess and report on their progress towards achieving sustainability goals. Examples of metrics in ESG reporting include carbon emissions, climate-related risk mitigation, fair labor practices, energy usage, community engagement, executive compensation, workplace health and safety, data privacy, supply chain resilience, board diversity, and more. Organizations may be required to comply with ESG reporting mandated by regulation and policy, such as through the European Union (EU) Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), state-level reporting requirements, among others.

In the certificate, you’ll explore topics, such as:

• triple bottom line accounting,
• emerging environmental challenges,
• sustainability of economic development,
• modeling techniques and analysis,
• national and international policies,
• role of different stakeholders in sustainability,
• traditional micro, macro, and international trade theory,
• economic systems,
• policy, law, and the legal system,
• globalization and localization, and
• business organization and financial market alternatives.