Professional Development

Center for Sustainability at Aquinas College: Sustainable Business Professional Certificate
The New England Consortium: "Train-the-Trainer" Green Chemistry Curriculum

The Fall 2012 schedule for the Sustainable Business Professional Certificate is finalized and registration is open. Please visit the C4S web site for more information on this educational opportunity, and to enroll. 

Overview

The non-credit Sustainable Business Professional Certificate offered by the Center for Sustainability (C4S) at Aquinas College provides an opportunity for managers and executives at all career stages as well as career‐changing professionals who wish to deepen their understanding of the fundamentals of sustainable business. In addition to foundational courses, active learning modules focus on topics that will enhance the ability of workplace professionals to deploy new tools, frameworks and organizational strategies, as well as help them serve as change agents to move their organizations to the forefront of sustainability efforts. The format utilizes interactive learning, incorporating case studies, practice‐based exercises and group exchange. Faculty is comprised of members of the Aquinas College Sustainable Business Department as well as affiliated faculty and professionals with expertise in sustainable business and green chemistry.

Program

The set of course modules is designed to help committed change agents move their organizations to the forefront of sustainability efforts and green chemistry. Modules include:

Core Modules

• Foundations in Sustainable Business
• Champions for Change: Building the Case for Sustainable Business

Elective Modules

• Green Chemistry for Managers
• Industrial Ecology & Life Cycle Assessment
• Climate Change Management: Strategies and Tools
• Sustainability Metrics and Reporting
• Sustainable Business Innovation
• Managing the Value Chain for Sustainability
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Sustainable Energy Systems & Policy

New modules will be developed as new issues and conditions emerge in the competitive landscape. 

The New EnglandConsortium (TNEC), based in the Center for Health Promotion and Research of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is a model worker health and safety training organization in New England. It is one of 20 national programs administered by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). In partnership with the School of Health and Environment (UMASS Lowell), TNEC provides open enrollment curricula, customized training and dynamic hands-on health and safety training with the use of simulated work tasks and mock incidents to provide students with a better understanding of workplace hazards and emergency responses. TNEC's courses meet or exceed the OSHA 1910.120 standard for protecting hazardous waste workers and employees who respond to hazardous material emergencies in their workplaces.  Courses are delivered at TNEC’s Training Center at UMass Lowell or at a company's site anywhere in New England.

TNEC developed a short (4 hour) “Train-the-Trainer” curriculum on green chemistry, specifically to train environmental and worker health and safety activists who would become a network promoting policies to promote the advancement of green chemistry and safer chemical alternatives in Massachusetts and Connecticut.  

• PDF documents of the green chemistry curricula, instructors guide and posters can be found at the TNEC website (here).
• A webinar describing the curriculum was hosted by the Great Lakes Green Chemistry Network and Michigan Green Chemistry Clearinghouse:
  • PDF of webinar