The O’Neill School in Indianapolis is preparing to offer a new course aimed at helping sustainability students and professionals alike. Greenhouse Gas Accounting will focus on teaching students how to help organizations measure their emissions impact and create a plan to address it. IU’s Associate Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer Jessica Davis works as an adjunct faculty member at O’Neill Indianapolis. She’ll lead the course set to begin in fall of 2024.
She came up with the idea after looking at the overall curriculum available and seeing what skillsets students would need to be successful after graduation. That’s when she saw an area of opportunity that could benefit students and future sustainability work across the nonprofit, private, and public sectors.
“Greenhouse gas inventories are a fundamental skillset for any aspiring sustainability professional,” Davis says.
Those skills help organizations have a better understanding of their own emissions landscape. That includes knowing what they’re emitting, where those emissions come from, and how much they’re releasing into the atmosphere. That understanding is the first step in creating meaningful and effective reduction strategies that can make a real impact on climate change.
“Without a robust inventory process, we risk creating ‘solutions’ that make the problem worse or don’t address the biggest drivers of the problem,” she explains.
That’s why Davis plans to hone in on the accounting portion of the problem. Unlike in previous courses that touched on the concept of greenhouse gas emissions, Davis says this class will focus specifically on the technical skills needed for greenhouse gas accounting.
Davis adds that the course also will set students up to take the next step to enroll in future certification programs, if they chose to pursue a certification in greenhouse gas accounting.
The 1 credit hour course will meet from 9 a.m.–noon on September 20, 27, and October 11, 2024, and should be open for registration by the end of April.
