121-435 Environmental Management Systems

Formerly available as 950-300/121-039. Students who have completed 950-300 or 121-039 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

At least 50 points of second-year subjects approved for environmental science or equivalent. Familiarity with quantitative methods (mathematics or modelling or statistics) is recommended.

This subject identifies the tasks involved in managing environmental projects; determines appropriate methods for accomplishing those tasks; and indicates how to conduct those methods. Students should become familiar with the principles of project management/project design including critical path analysis; decision-making processes and decision support systems; project control; risk management; and scheduling. Students should also become familiar with cost-benefit analysis including issues of welfare, externalities, options and discounts; pricing environmental goods; social impacts; opportunity costs; assessing costs and benefits. Finally students will explore the question of environmental standards including issues such as the role of standards; Australian and international standards; transparency and accountability; auditing compliance.

A 3-hour examination, and practical exercises totalling 4000 words for 3rd year, 5000 words for 4th year.