Students who are starting the Business & Society programme in September 2020 should enrol in either Section A or Section B of SOSC 1340 9.0 Introduction to Business & Society.
Please DO NOT enrol in SOSC 1340 6.0 Section M.
Completing SOSC 1340 9.0 Section A or Section B will fulfil the core requirement in BUSO but it will NOT COUNT as a general education course for majors in Business & Society.
EU/ENVS 2000 6.0 Environmental Politics, Justice and Arts
How do we change the world? How do we construct a just society in creative ways? This Area focuses on facing today’s environmental challenges through politics, art, philosophy, education and media. Sample topics include environmental racism and justice movements; environmental ethics; digital art and the environment; environmental education; human-animal relations; environmental literature; indigenous sovereignty; human and gender rights; technology, science and politics; culture and global media; sustainable development; the political economy of international development; health equity; climate justice; sexuality and gender-based activism.
or
EU/ENVS 2400 6.0 Foundations of Environmental Management
Drawing on the natural and social sciences, this course examines the role of policy and management strategies in addressing environmental, natural resource and conservation challenges, in ways supportive of sustainable development. It provides an overview of the concepts, knowledge and skills that are needed to be effective in environmental policy and management in government, business and not-for-profit sectors.
6.0 credits chosen from:
EU/ENVS 3000 3.0 Environmental Ethics & Epistemology (not offered 2017-18)
This course identifies, examines, and compares ethical perspectives from diverse traditions with a particular focus on the interplay of ethics and epistemology, and metaphysical issues and their relationship to underlying cultural, environmental, and spiritual values. Individual ethics and practical applications in "living a good life" will be explored.
EU/ENVS 3120 3.0 Environmental History (not offered 2017-18)
EU/ENVS 3130 3.0 Energy and the Environment in Canada
The course focuses on relationships between socio-economic development, energy use, and the environment in Canada. Energy sources, energy end-use, energy technology, and energy institutions, as well as the social and ecological impacts of energy use, are examined. Energy systems supportive of sustainable development are explored.
EU/ENVS 3151 3.0 Environmental Politics and Advocacy
This course introduces students to a range of approaches and issues in environmental politics and advocacy. Themes include political dimensions of contemporary environmental problems; main currents in environmental political thought; and relations between governmental and non-governmental organizations in environmental advocacy.
EU/ENVS 3160 3.0 Race/Racism and Environmental Justice
Examines the intersection of "race"/racism and environmentalism. It begins from the premise that environmental issues are always already racialized. Issues as diverse as toxic facility siting, environmental assessment practices, ecological philosophies, and popular nature representations (re)produce powerful assumptions that turn on racist/ racialized constructs. Discussion may include the history and current practices of environmental justice movements; questions of race and representation in green politics; the significance of environmentalism's silence about race; cross-cultural and anti-racist environmental politics; and postcolonial perspectives on global environmental issues.
EU/ENVS 3170 3.0 Indigenous Environmental Thought (not offered 2017-18)
This course will explore various Traditional Aboriginal processes of "coming to know" the environment. Students will be guided through an examination of these Aboriginal relationships, as they existed traditionally, through times of critical change, and into the present. The underlying theme of this course will focus on individual, regional, and national ways of "being and becoming" environmentally responsible moving outwards towards a Global responsibility.
EU/ENVS 3226 3.0 Sustainable Urbanism: Environmental Planning and Design
[This course builds on ENVS 2200 6.0 which is recommended.]
Planning and design of sustainable human environments is explored in this course. Consideration of the ecological, social and economic impacts of past and present and alternative future settlement patterns and processes provides the context for discussion. The focus of study is the GTA, although international examples will be used.
EU/ENVS 3227 3.0 Urban Planning and Practice in the Global South
This course examines urban planning practice in developing countries as a response to the problems in the cities of the Global South. It examines the origins and evolution of urban planning taking into account political, social, economic, and cultural circumstances, by examining case studies from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
EU/ENVS 3320 3.0 Sex, Gender, Nature: Ecofeminist Perspectives (not offered 2017-18)
EU/ENVS 3340 3.0 Global Environmental Politics
EU/ENVS 3410 3.0 Environmental Policy I
The formulation of environmental policy is the focus its underlying scope, concepts, legal bases, methodologies. Case studies illustrate the interaction of environmental policy with other policy areas: foreign and trade policy, economic and social policy. A critical review of how policy is created participants, effects, burdens and benefits.
EU/ENVS 3420 3.0 Environmental Law
Introduction to basic legal concepts: sources of law, legal remedies, common law, administrative law. Planning acts, environmental protection acts and environmental assessment acts. Litigation processes, hearing boards, and their operation. A critical review of environmental legal concepts and their social, economic and environmental effects.
EU/ENVS 3430 3.0 Environmental Assessment
EU/ENVS 3440 3.0 Resource Management
Current theories of resource management, methods, information and decision-making are reviewed critically. Ethical, cultural, social and economic perspectives on resource management are explored through case studies.
EU/ENVS 3505 3.0 Business and Sustainability: Issues and Strategies
An introduction to key dimensions of business and sustainability including: what is sustainability?; "values-driven" business models and practices; eco-production in key economic sectors (food, manufacturing, energy, building); financing sustainability; indicators of sustainability; green regulation; and green business strategies. Prerequisite: Third- or fourth-year standing, or permission of the instructor.
EU/ENVS 3510 3.0 Environmental Economics
The application of economic principles to environmental issues is introduced and critically reviewed. Linkages between economic factors, social processes and natural environments are explored. The use of economic principles in deriving solutions to issues of pollution control, resource depletion, and environmental regulation is explored.
For the Honours program: 6.0 credits chosen from:
AP/SOSC 4048 3.0 The Business of Fair Trade
The seminar course is an optional course in the Environment stream of the Business & Society program. It focuses on various aspects of the practice of fair trade - as a form of regulation, as a form of production and as a social movement.
AP/SOSC 4049 3.0 The Business of Food & Farming
The seminar course focuses on Food and Farming, including the analysis of different types of agricultural production and their ability to provide the basis for sustainable food systems.
EU/ENVS 4011 3.0 Food, Land and Culture
[Students with Third-year standing may have access subject to space availability and approval from the Faculty.]
Examines food, land, and culture from a critical interdisciplinary environmental perspective. Students have the opportunity to pursue their own interests related to food politics, planning, sustainable and alternative agriculture, human-animal relationships and ethics, from a local and or global perspective.
EU/ENVS 4100 3.0 Environmental Literatures (not offered 2017-18)
This course will explore the role of literature and literary criticism (including ecocriticism) in interpreting, creating, and transforming environmental discourse and politics. It will take up questions concerning the historical development of environmental and nature writing, and will explore a variety of contemporary genres that call older traditions to account. Through the close reading of a diverse collection of literary texts (poetry, novels, short stories, plays, etc.), we will examine and practice a number of different approaches to defining, reading, and critiquing environmental literature.
EU/ENVS 4120 3.0 Natural History (offered SU17)
Explores the beliefs, theories and practices of naturalists, through readings as well as visits to sites of natural history. It examines the ways in which current approaches to natural history are products of the historical development of the field, and reflect assumptions regarding scientific knowledge formation and practice.
EU/ENVS 4140 3.0 Environmental Thought
An introduction to diverse ways of seeing and understanding nature. A historical perspective on the development of environmental thought leads to an exploration of various perspectives and critiques of the standard scientific and technological approaches to understanding nature, as offered by alternative schools of thought such as humanists, deep ecologists and ecofeminists.
EU/ENVS 4161 3.0 Social Movements, Activism and Social Change
[Students with Third-year standing may have access subject to space availability and approval from the Faculty.]
This course examines new social movements that have arisen in response to the crisis of industrial culture, economic restructuring, shifting political formations, and ecological disasters. The course focuses on current theories of social movements, contested issues, and case studies of social movements in action and is intended to provide opportunities for students to gain first hand experience with social movement organizations through participatory research projects.
EU/ENVS 4210 3.0 Global Populations: Critical Environmental Perspectives
Examines the trends, causes and consequences in population growth and movements across the globe. It studies the environmental impacts of rises in population, global refugee and immigration patterns and their socio-environmental consequences, and the influence of new immigrants and 'diasporas' on national identity and culture. Case studies explore existing and alternative family planning policies, the enhancement of women's status through educational, health and employment strategies, and immigration and multicultural policies in developed and developing countries.
EU/ENVS 4215 3.0 Globalization and Indigenous Peoples (offered SU17)
[Students with Third-year standing may have access subject to space availability and approval from the Faculty.]
Indigenous peoples are distinct communities who have experienced the processes of globalization in particular ways. This course reviews the global historical processes of imperialism and colonialism and their legacies of racism, assimilation and marginalization. The course then examines Indigenous peoples' resistance to globalization and engagement with global networks and institutions, in order to protect their cultures and assert their rights.
EU/ENVS 4410 3.0 Environmental Policy II (not offered 2017-18)
EU/ENVS 4421 3.0 Environmental Law & Justice: Stories and Struggles
[Students with Third-year standing may have access subject to space availability and approval from the Faculty.]
[This course builds on EU/ENVS 3420 3.0, which is recommended.]
This course examines and evaluates how contemporary advocates employ law to protect the environment, secure equal access to environmental health, and contribute to social justice. This course builds on EU/ENVS 3420 3.0, which is recommended.
EU/ENVS 4510 3.0 Ecological Economics (not offered 2017-18)
Provides an introduction to the emerging field of ecological economics. Areas of focus include the appropriate scale of the economy in relation to the environment, the role of discount rates in mediating intergenerational and interspecies equity, environmental valuation, full-cost accounting, environmental risk assessment, and the application of thermodynamic and ecological principles in economic analysis.
Go to the York Courses Website to search course offerings for the current academic year.