This is the outline of the Net Impact-Fisher College of Business Sustainability Certificate.

1. Campus Wide Sustainability
Certificate Program

2. What is Sustainability?
Sustainable Society
Living and operating so that future
generations inherit a habitable planet able to
support prosperous human activity indefinitely
Enterprise Sustainability
“a business approach that creates long-term
shareholder value by embracing opportunities
and managing risks that derive from economic,
environmental, and social developments.”
- Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes

3. Why is Sustainability Important?
Companies are realizing the benefits of sustainability
Companies who invest in sustainability initiatives
outperform those who merely follow regulations
Ohio State is strategically investing in sustainability
From operations, curriculum, to research, OSU
is heavily invested in sustainability
Students are being recruited for their knowledge of sustainability
More and more recruiters are asking about students knowledge of
sustainability and how it can help their organization

4. Sustainability Touches Every Discipline
No one organization or department owns sustainability
Sustainability is inherently interdisciplinary. It is
an aspect of almost all majors and all organizations
in some way
Many courses offered in sustainability are elective
Many of the courses dealing with sustainability
aren’t part of the required curriculum, so
students don’t get credit for taking these courses
Skills needed are diverse and come from a range of experiences
It is difficult to communicate the various experiences
one needs to be a leader in sustainability, so often
those experiences go misunderstood by recruiters

5. What are Employers Looking For?
“What kind of extra curricular experience
do you look for when hiring an recent
graduate for a sustainability related job?”
“I look for skill. I don't care if you were
Me the president of this club or that. Show
me what you did, what you know, and
how it will add value to my organization”.
The Question: Net Impact
How do we give students an experience Board Member
which provides meaningful, quantifiable,
and rigorous skills in the area of
sustainability?

6. Campus Wide Sustainability Certificate
Quantify, manage, and communicate sustainability skills
This program will be a way to package all campus
related sustainability experience into one aspect
Open to all OSU students
Applications will open in April and close late May applicants
will be accepted depending on interest and qualification
Radical partnerships
All projects, events, workshops, and courses offered at OSU
and elsewhere relating to sustainability will count toward the
certificate. What can your organization contribute?
Student Led, Student Driven
Entire certificate program will be administered and ran by
student leaders. Student leaders may receive a stipend or
conference sponsorship (depending on funding)

7. Sustainability Certificate Components
The Certificate will have four major components students will
have to complete:
Theory Practitioner Project Leadership
Giving students Having students Giving students Having students
the background experience real the opportunity to lead
knowledge to examples of work on and organizations,
understand sustainability complete a plan events, and
concepts and related initiatives sustainability manage projects
issues related to in related project in in order to build
sustainability industry, governm order to gain the leadership
through ent, and other practical hands on skills necessary to
individual and entities experience in scale their impact
multidisciplinary sustainability
perspectives

8. Sustainability Certificate Program
Students will attend, complete, and enroll in approved courses, events,
projects, and workshops in order to earn enough points toward their
certification:
Theory Practitioner Project Leadership
• Sustainability • Sustainability • On campus • Be on event
course work related site sustainability planning team
• Academic visits related project • Be an officer of
speakers • Corporate • Service sustainability
• Academic sustainability projects related club
research speakers • Sustainability • Project
• Self study • Industry related projects manager on
related for local sustainability
conferences businesses project
• Internships • Case
competitions

9. Example Certificate
Category Activity Points
Theory
Engineering 694R - Resilience Engineering 4
Honors Thesis on Fraccing's Effect on the Environment 7
Book Report on "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" 2
International Poverty Solutions Workshop 1
14
Practitioner
Site Visit to Alcoa Plant 3
Site Visit to Quasar Energy 1
APTE Conference 2
Net Impact Green Supply Chain Symposium 2
Green Building Expo at 4-H Center 2
Net Impact Central Yearly Conference (3-day) 5
This is an example of a Silver Interview with Josef Fiksel on Resilience 1
16
Level Certificate Project
Living Labs Recycling on Campus Project 6
ESS Energy Audit Workshop 3
5 Campus Energy Audits 5
Seeds for Social Change Workshop 5
There are 4 Levels: Part Time Internship with Algae Ventures 7
Certified: 40 Points
Member of Solar Decathlon 7
33
Silver: 60 Points Leadership
VP of Marketing for Students for Recycling 5
Gold: 90 Points Planning Team for Sustainability Summit 4
Project Manager for Living Labs Recycling Project 4
Platinum: 140 Points 13
Total Points 62
Silver Level of Award

10. Organizations, Colleges, Departments and
other entities send President sustainability
related events, projects, and educational President
Organizational
opportunities.
Structure
President then funnels
opportunities to various VPs
Theory VP Practitioner VP Leadership VP Project VP
Point Allocation Process
VPs will get more info on the event, assign
points to the opportunity, create a quiz on
Carmen, write a brief of the event, and Students will complete the
post it onto Carmen. All opportunities will Students in Program various point opportunities
be aggregated and sent out each week in a presented by leadership.
weekly digest email. They will then go to
Carmen and submit a quiz.
Students can check
progress within the grade
function of Carmen.