Ecopreneurship

We are in the midst of a multi-decade, multi-trillion dollar economic transition to address current global climate and sustainability challenges and create a future where humans and nature thrive in concert and in perpetuity. A crucial driver to accelerate this transition will be sustainability-focused entrepreneurs (i.e. “ecopreneurs”). The courses in this certificate present the processes, mindsets, and tools that ecopreneurs leverage to solve complex environmental sustainability challenges through the creation of new organizations or new initiatives within larger organizations. By completing this certificate, students will gain practice in identifying opportunities, evaluating the viability of new ventures, and leading change for sustainability.

Learning objectives

Learn

Gain exposure to tools, processes, and mindsets for discovering and evaluating the viability of ecoventure opportunities and leveraging resources and partners to build new ecoventures by taking Ecopreneurship: Pioneering Sustainability Ventures.

Connect

Bridge knowledge from multiple disciplines (e.g., science, engineering, policy, leadership, design, communications, finance, etc.) to enrich your understanding of the complex challenges that ecopreneurs face and your capacity to effectively lead sustainability-focused organizations and initiatives, by taking three elective courses.

Act

Grapple with real sustainability issues by actively evaluating a sustainability-focused venture idea through a project-based experiential course.

Courses

You must complete the core course and 3 elective courses from the list below. 1 elective must be a project based course. 

Reminder: All courses must be taken for at least 3 units and a letter grade. You cannot receive credit towards the program requirements for repeated courses or courses counted towards your graduate degree.

Core course

STRAMGT 357 Ecopreneurship: Pioneering Sustainability Ventures

Elective courses

CourseTitleProject based
CEE 207RE^3: Extreme Energy Efficiency 
EARTHSYS 116AClimate Perspectives: Climate Science, Impacts, Carbon Markets, Decarbonization Models and Projects 
EARTHSYS 213Innovation for Climate and Sustainability✔️
EBS 332Climate Tech for Rapid Decarbonization 
ENERGY 203Stanford Climate Ventures✔️
ENVRES 260Implementing & Financing a Decarbonized Economy 
HRP 224Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab (SE Lab) – Human & Planetary Health✔️
SUST 220Case Studies in Leading Change for Sustainability✔️
SUST 234Integrative Design and Entrepreneurship for Sustainability✔️
SUSTAIN 370Scaling Solutions in Sustainability 
SUSTAIN 376Startup Garage: Design*✔️
SUSTAIN 377Startup Garage: Testing and Launch*✔️

*Must be a sustainability-focused project.  Explicitly, the main measure of success for the project must be centered around environmental impact (e.g. tons of CO2 equivalent reduced, kilowatt-hours generated, number of new solar electricians trained, acres of forest preserved, tons of waste diverted, etc.).

View Explore Courses for a current list of course offerings in this program.