Master of Public Policy in Sustainability and Climate Change
At a Glance
- Format: On-Campus (Boston), with asynchronous online coursework available for core courses
- Course Breakdown: 40 credits total
- Core Courses: 7 courses in research methods, statistical analysis, economic analysis, policy strategy, program evaluation, and public policy capstone
- Concentration Courses: 3 courses in sustainability, climate change, energy policy, food systems, and environmental policy
- Additional Electives: Elective courses chosen to round out your expertise in public policy
Learn More About Our Concentration
Build the Policy Skills the Climate Crisis Demands
The transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy is one of the defining policy challenges of our time. It touches energy systems, urban infrastructure, food supply, international development, and economic growth. It also requires policymakers who can navigate the technical, political, and social dimensions of climate change all at once.
Northeastern University’s Master of Public Policy with a concentration in Sustainability and Climate Change Policy prepares students to do exactly that. This concentration is designed for professionals who want to move beyond awareness of climate issues and into the work of designing and advancing the policies that will drive real change at the local, national, and international level.
Please note: The Sustainability and Climate Change Policy concentration can be completed only at Northeastern’s Boston campus.
Master of Public Policy
Get Started Now
Fill out the form to learn more and download a brochure about Northeastern University’s Master of Public Policy.
You can also email publicaffairs@northeastern.edu or call us at +1 857.754.3734 to talk with one of our enrollment specialists.
What You’ll Learn
The MPP’s Sustainability and Climate Change Policy concentration builds a skill set that connects environmental science and systems thinking with rigorous policy analysis. Students who complete this concentration develop skills in:
- Climate Change and Public Policy Analysis: Examine climate change from a policy perspective. Explore how governments and organizations develop and implement strategies to reduce emissions, manage risk, and drive the transition to a low-carbon economy.
- Energy Systems and Policy: Understand the relationship between energy infrastructure, technology, and policy. Analyze the social and political dimensions of the shift away from fossil fuels toward renewable and more equitable energy systems.
- Ecological Economics: Apply the tools of ecological economics to evaluate how economic systems interact with natural ones. Assess policy tradeoffs and the role of investment decisions in addressing environmental challenges.
- Sustainability and Urban Planning: Explore how cities can reduce their environmental footprint while advancing social equity. Evaluate planning approaches that address the built environment, transportation, energy use, and water systems at the local level.
- International Environmental Policy: Analyze global environmental challenges and the governance structures built to address them. Develop the skills to assess multi-stakeholder negotiations, international agreements, and the tensions between environmental protection and development.
- Food Systems and Sustainability: Examine the connections between food security, agricultural policy, and environmental sustainability at local, national, and global scales.
- Climate Justice and Equity: Examine how the burdens of climate change fall unevenly across communities defined by race, income, and geography. Analyze policy approaches that center equity in the energy transition, from community-led climate initiatives to federal environmental justice frameworks, and develop the tools to advocate for just and inclusive policy solutions.
Curriculum
The Sustainability and Climate Change Policy concentration requires 12 semester hours selected from the following courses:
Explores the science of sustainable food production around the world and examines the issues related to nutrition and hunger, food safety, and food production. Discusses issues such as population growth, climate change, and sustainability, which are presented as thematic topics. Also discusses issues such as soil health, genetically modified (and engineered) foods, water use, governmental food guidelines, and human health. Pulls focus on the thematic topics from scientific literature but also includes additional sources of information, such as gray literature, media coverage, documentaries, and popular nonfiction. Explores local examples of sustainable agriculture, including incentives in food security and sustainability in New England.
Provides an overview of the various aspects of urban sustainability planning. Examines sustainability as an urban planning approach with both ecological and social justice goals. Covers sustainable planning and offers students an opportunity to understand it within the context of smart growth and the new urbanism. Focuses on the two areas in which cities can reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions—the built environment and transportation. From there, the course examines planning efforts to reduce demand on water and sewer systems and to create employment in renewable energy and other “clean-tech” occupations. The course ends by placing urban initiatives in the context of state and national policy.
Serves as an introduction to climate change and development processes in developing countries. Exposes students to key debates in the fields of climate change and international development. Offers students an opportunity to learn about the approaches to climate adaptation, the relationship between adaptation and development, and concepts of resilience and transformation. Using a comparative case study approach, explores the importance of the local context; the intersections of politics, economics, and culture; ecology and human-environment relationships; and the role (and challenges) of finance and development assistance. Climate impacts threaten to reverse many of the development gains of the last century, and the most vulnerable are likely to be the most impacted by climate change. At the same time, opportunities exist to ensure climate-compatible development pathways.
Introduces methods and tools of ecological economics, an interdisciplinary field that draws on theories, concepts, and tools from the physical, life, and social sciences; unites the relevant aspects of different disciplines; and generates new knowledge that can serve as a basis for investment and policymaking that is responsive to biophysical constraints on economic processes. Illustrates the use of ecological economics with empirical applications. Offers students an opportunity to apply ecological economics to a variety of environmental issues.
Introduces the theory, methods, and tools of dynamic modeling for policy and investment decision making, with special focus on environmental issues. Makes use of state-of-the-art computing methods to translate theory and concepts into executable models and provides extensive hands-on modeling experience. Topics include discounting, intertemporal optimization, dynamic games, and treatment of uncertainty.
Explores the renewable energy transition with an emphasis on social innovations in energy systems, climate resilience, and the interconnections among technology, policy, and social change. The transition away from fossil fuels toward more efficient, renewable- based energy systems includes much more than a technological substitution; this transition also involves social, institutional, and cultural change in how individuals, households, communities, and organizations relate to and use energy. The emerging concept of energy democracy provides an innovative lens to explore the transformative potential of the renewable energy transition. Explores tensions associated with systemic vs. incremental change, centralized vs. decentralized systems, and infrastructural lock-in vs.flexibility through semester-long team projects in which students contribute to existing, ongoing, local energy transition initiatives.
Discusses key climate policy approaches, including market-based and regulatory approaches, as well as intersectional approaches that address underlying drivers of climate change.Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing society and requires policy responses across scales: locally, nationally, and globally. Introduces frameworks and tools for climate policy design, implementation, and evaluation, with an emphasis on considering how policies can promote justice. Case studies from US and international contexts will be used throughout the semester to explore policy design and implementation in practice. In addition to considering national and sub-national climate policy, covers legal, political, and economic issues in the international negotiations and addresses the history and current issues in international climate diplomacy.
Explores key environmental challenges from an international perspective. Provides a history of international environmental politics, as well as discussion of contemporary issues. Presents key paradigms for understanding environmental challenges, and aims to equip students with the analytical tools to look critically at important debates, understand the role of different actors, and assess policy options from multiple perspectives. Focus areas include natural resource management, multi-stakeholder negotiations, and climate change. Themes addressed throughout the course include the role of science in environmental policy, tensions between environment and development in international environmental politics, and the scale and complexity of international environmental governance.
Explores the public policy dimensions of the contemporary food system. Utilizes scholarly readings and case studies to assess the role of governing institutions and political actors in shaping the food supply; the effects of energy, transportation, and urban policies on food access; the ecological dimensions of food production; impacts of international trade regimes on global food trade; and the potential impacts of climate change on food security. Compares the United States and other nations and explores alternatives to the dominant food system. Seeks to engage students in applied policy analysis of specific food system issues.
Offers an integrated introduction to the intersection between environmental science and policy. Organized around the two central themes of sustainability transitions and climate resilience. Connects theoretical frameworks, including sociotechnical systems and coupled socioecological systems, to key science-policy issues related to transitioning to a more sustainable future and responding to a changing climate.
Focuses on often-overlooked management challenges facing local governments: preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters, whether natural or human-caused. While disaster planning typically focuses on first responders in fire and police departments, or on federal government agencies like FEMA, much less attention is paid to those local government leaders, from town managers to elected mayors and councilors, who are responsible for how their municipalities handle disaster. Considers what public leaders need to know about building their own capabilities and draws on cases and lessons from local government to build resilience into local communities.
Note: Students select courses by advisement to build a coherent focus within the concentration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, our online courses are offered asynchronously, meaning you can view class lectures on your own time. Our on-campus courses start after 5 p.m.
Students can finish the degree in as few as four semesters as a full-time student. We recommend a maximum of three courses per semester.
Tuition is $1,013 per semester hour (SH). Total tuition is $40,520, based on 40 SH (10 courses). The university also charges some additional fees per semester and/or for specific on-campus amenities. See our tuition and financial aid page for more details.
No, you do not need to provide GRE or GMAT scores in order to apply.
A general difference is that public policy is more involved in the design and impact of policy, while public administration is more concerned with implementing and managing policies.
Here is a comparison of sample MPP courses and sample MPA courses:
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For a more detailed explanation, read our article “MPP vs. MPA: What’s the Difference?”
No, it is available only at the Boston campus.
No, concentrations are optional. Students may take general electives if they’d rather shape their degree differently.
The certificate covers similar content and may appeal to students seeking a standalone credential, while the concentration is embedded within the MPP degree.
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