Keio University Syllabus and Timetable

Background
The sustainability of the economic system depends heavily on the flow of material contributions from nature. Central to this environment-economy material relationship is the built-in tendency of unrestrained capitalist extraction of virgin resources and consumption of processed raw materials to support all forms of economic activity. This produces enormous disruptive effects on the natural environment as witnessed by a vicious cycle of unprecedented biodiversity loss, accelerating human-induced climate change and rapid decline of our planetary life-support system. Inevitably, the increasing disruption of man’s natural environment threatens all forms of life on Earth. To avoid this environmental predicament, it is of utmost importance to devise long-term mitigating strategies in the field of environmental economic policy-making.
However, one of the most formidable challenges confronting decision-makers in the policy-making process is the lack of a clear understanding of the dynamic nature of the complex environmental system. That said, nature is governed by complete causality. More specifically, the environmental system is tied up to the economic system and other interconnected systems such as the climate system that feed back and forth between one another via circular causal paths, where the first system influences the second and the second system influences the first, leading to multiple cause-effect consequences. Human mind is not trained to follow such dynamics of “change begets change” underlie the complex interacting environment-economy system. This tends to impede effective policy-making.
To make progress with the daunting task of competent policy formulation and development, we need to recognize the fact that the interaction of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This bespeaks the need to move away from the linear cause-effect modeling in decision-making to embrace the system dynamics approach to policy assessment, focusing on the investigation of the complex interactions between the environmental and economic systems. This allows us to make headway with the causal analysis of the forces and actions at work in the environmental process of change in the dynamical environment-economy system interactions. Such an analysis will reveal a wealth of highly important insights that can be transmitted to policy-makers to guide effective decision-making and innovative policy design.
Purpose/Aims
The purpose of this course is to provide students with an integrated understanding of the dynamics of environment-economy interactions. This enables students to fully grasp the depth of the dynamic and nonlinear behavior of the environmental and economic systems as they interact and change over time. This contributes to develop students’ innovative use of specialized knowledge and critical thinking skills in designing cost-effective environmental planning and programs in addressing many of today’s complex environmental challenges and economic issues.
This brings us to the discussions of a wide range of topics, covering the theory and practice in system dynamics, complex economy-environment system interactions and their resultant multiple cause and effect consequences, theory and practice in environmental policy-making, and the role of value orientations in sustainable environmental decision-making and policy design, among other subjects of interest. The discussions will be empirically tested using relevant case studies drawing from academic research and actual field study.
Methods
The course will begin with an introduction of some basic concepts of environmental economics. This is followed by discussions of various related topics as shown in the syllabus section. We than proceed to case study evaluations based on various cross-cutting themes. This provides a perspective of what works and what does not in a real-world system. In this way, it permits students to broaden their intellectual insights and to respond to the need to re-conceptualize environmental policy-making from a more pragmatic perspective.
The course will be taught using high-impact educational practices based on enhanced-impact PowerPoint slides prepared by the instructor, in-person instruction, theoretical discussions and case study analyses. In particular, classes will be conducted using interactive learning strategy to intellectually engage and involve students as active participants. This contributes to build up students’ motivation and optimize learning outcomes.
The course is structured into three parts as follows:
(a) Theory: Theoretical knowledge provides in-depth perspectives to explain, understand and predict phenomena and to identify a problem. The focus of the first part is to enlighten students with a related set of theoretical concepts and principles governing various topics as shown in the syllabus. This enables students to familiarize with discipline-specific knowledge governing the complexity of economy-environment system interactions and effective policy making process.
(b) Problem-based learning (from theory to practice): Integrating theory into practice enables students to demonstrate their ability to use evidence to enhance their perceptions of key concepts and principles, to understand about certain phenomena and to justify their decision-making in addressing real-world problems. Against this backdrop, the second part is designed to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world situations based on case study. This allows students to have a clear understating of how things work in real-world scenarios.
(c) The last part is the Harvard Business School (HBS) Case Study Method program. The program places great emphasis in promoting students’ intellectual acuity and judgment in the application of environmental economic concepts and principles in environmental policy-making. The program also provides opportunities to students from different countries and with different backgrounds to work collaboratively in teams and to share their thoughts and ideas based on group discussions in tackling real life environmental issues. In this way, students will be able to streamline their analytical, organizational, managerial and teamwork skills.
Briefly, the HBS program is an innovation-driven student-led seminar. For this program, students are required to divide into small groups, say, 5 to 8 individuals with one of the groups representing the lead group to prepare for a presentation in class based on an assigned topic. After presentation, the rest of the students (in teams) are required to assume the role of policy-makers, entrepreneurs, environmental activists or ordinary citizens as it deems fit, to create, present and rebut arguments based on evidence, theoretical concepts and principles, and to suggest mitigating measures or innovative policy design. Attendance is compulsory and the detail of the HBS program will be explained in class. The instructor will render advice and guidance to students throughout the course in their preparations to enable them to put together a logical and well-organized presentation.
Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:
 Develop a holistic understanding of the dynamics of economy-environment system interactions. This allows students to break down complex issues into manageable parts, identify reciprocal cause-effect relationships and develop innovative solutions for policy intervention.
 To gain insights into the practical importance system dynamics in testing hypotheses about the causes and effects of complex, dynamic system problems, and environmental risk identification, analysis and policy responses. This helps to guide students to determine in what direction scientific investigation must proceed so that it shall arrive at fruitful results.
 Draw out original insights based on discipline-specific knowledge and develop innovative problem-solving skills to deal with complicated situations or unknown problems in an unfamiliar context based on all available facts and information, which is crucial for academic or career advancement.
 Develop critical thinking, cross-disciplinary analytical skills and creativity, communication and presentation skills, organization and teamwork competency and managerial capacity through integrative lectures and Harvard Case Study program ∸ some of the essential qualities of good leadership.

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Ahmed M. Hussen. 2004. Principles of Environmental Economics. Routledge: London
Bas Arts and Pieter Leroy (eds.). 2006. Institutional Dynamics in Environmental Governance. Springer: The Netherlands
Choy Yee Keong. 2020. Global Environmental Sustainability: Case Studies and Analysis of the United Nations’ Journey toward Sustainable Development. Elsevier: Amsterdam, London, New York
David R. Heise. 1975. Causal Analysis. New York: John Wiley & Son,
Jane Roberts. 2004. Environmental Policy (2nd Edition) Routledge: Oxon. New York
Jay W. Forrester. 1961. Industrial Dynamics. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Michael E. Kraft. 2011. Environmental Policy and Politics (5th ed.). Longman: Boston
Pieter Glasbergen and Andrew Blowers (eds.). 2003. Environmental Policy in an International Context. Prospects for Environmental Change. Vol. 3. Elsevier: Amsterdam, London, New York

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