Sustainable development - professional practice and systems thinking

Professional bodies are now recognising that sustainable development is a key issue for professional practice and the wider role of professionals in society. Since many professional bodies also define the curricula of degree programmes, which provide the educational route to membership of the professions, this significant change in emphasis has far reaching implications for graduate and post graduate programmes in HE institutions. As part of this change process, 14 professional bodies have developed a common framework for sustainability to enable them to develop their thinking and practice. They have also engaged in a programme of inter-professional dialogue and learning to help develop a generic course on sustainable development for the professions, based on systems thinking and practice. The course explores the application of systemic thinking to a variety of organisational contexts that emphasises problem-solving, risk assessment and cultural change as part of the process to more sustainable businesses or organisations.