The online MSc in Sustainability Management is a two-year journey designed not only to deepen your knowledge, but to transform the way you show up as a sustainability professional. Built around eight immersive learning blocks, the programme blends academic excellence with practical skills, personal growth, and real-world impact.
In the first six blocks, you move through a powerful 10-week rhythm that mirrors the realities of leading change:
Skills Crash Course (1 week): Begin each block by developing capabilities you can use immediately, such as persuasive communication, critical research literacy, systems thinking, or leveraging AI as a sustainability professional.
Core Course (8 weeks): Dive into the theoretical foundations of sustainability management and apply them to real organisational challenges with industry relevant cases.
Inner Development Week (1 week): Close the block with guided reflection and leadership development, strengthening the mindset, resilience, and positionality as a conscious changemaker.
In the final two blocks, you transition into your thesis journey, supported by dedicated skills crash courses that help you shape, design, and communicate a rigorous research project. You’ll be guided through formulating your research question, structuring your methodology, and crafting compelling visuals to deliver a powerful, professional level presentation.
This unique structure ensures that you graduate not only with thematic expertise, but with the practical skills, leadership maturity, and self-awareness needed to tackle complex sustainability challenges and advance confidently in your career.
Year 1
Your programme starts by building a platform for your learning journey and laying the foundations for impactful management.
Coursework includes:
- Learning the principles of sustainability.
- Exploring different worldviews of sustainable development and how those views may generate differentiated approaches and actions.
- Analysing the current approaches of companies.
- Evaluating how firms can use a systems perspective and innovation process to build business solutions that enhance the health of social-ecological systems.
Curious to learn more about this course? Watch the introduction by Dr Steve Kennedy below:
In the second course, you step into the role of a sustainability manager.
This course focuses on:
- Sustainability strategies that help to drive environmental and social impact within companies.
- The key frameworks of sustainability management.
- Practical tools and case studies that empower you to integrate sustainable practices into business operations.
Curious to learn more about this course? Watch the introduction by Dr Madeleine Meurer below:
In your third course, you explore the question: Why are some companies more sustainable than others?
Coursework includes:
- Analysing governance mechanisms that shape corporate sustainability.
- Exploring the impact of internal governance mechanisms, such as top management teams, boards of directors, and shareholders.
- Evaluating external governance mechanisms, such as ESG rating agencies, the media, social activists, and regulators.
Curious to learn more about this course? Watch the introduction by Dr Emilio Marti below:
In the fourth course, you examine responsibility and ethics as pillars of sustainability.
You are stimulated to:
- Develop the capabilities you need to help you avoid moral blind spots.
- Internalise and embrace ethical behaviour in your daily work practices.
- Lead other stakeholders within and beyond organisational boundaries to work towards sustainability objectives.
Year 2
The fifth course investigates the complexity of tackling social issues.
You learn how to:
- Critically appraise potential solutions to social issues from various perspectives.
- Explore why issues such as labour conditions, inequality or global migration are so difficult to tackle.
- Reflect on the insights from the previous courses to examine the complexity, scale and scope of these issues, and why current solutions often fail.
In the sixth course, you explore how business activities drive major environmental issues, including:
- Climate change
- Biodiversity loss
- Freshwater scarcity
- Habitat destruction
- Pollution
- Overexploitation
For these issues, you further analyse the causes and impact, examine case studies to understand corporate responsibilities, risks, and strategies, and identify practical ways to address the challenges.
Your final project in the online MSc takes place in the last semester, around 16 weeks after you start, in which you are required to analyse a partner company’s sustainability approach and to draw on insights from all the six courses.
For this project, you collect data, critically analyse the company’s actions and write a detailed report. Additionally, you must demonstrate how you collaborated with a company contact and an RSM supervisor.
We use a blended, personalised learning approach that combines live sessions with independent study, enabling flexibility while maintaining strong cohort engagement.
The programme follows a structured sequence of modules that progressively build knowledge and skills. This supports sustained focus and a clear learning journey, while fostering collaboration and group cohesion. For group projects, learners are assigned based on both geographic diversity and compatible time zones, ensuring effective collaboration and reflecting real-world global teamwork.
You will be supported throughout by a dedicated programme management team, offering academic guidance, logistical assistance, and ongoing pastoral support.
Independent study is delivered through online materials including recorded lectures, case studies, discussion forums, written assignments, essays, and digital workbooks, allowing you to learn at your own pace.
Live sessions are designed to deepen understanding through guided discussions, peer interaction, and faculty input. These sessions include lectures, panel discussions, Q&As, and masterclasses, and may feature contributions from industry professionals and external experts. Learners collaborate in breakout rooms, exchange perspectives, and engage directly with sustainability topics.
To ensure accessibility, each live session is delivered twice to accommodate different time zones and is recorded for later viewing.
Cohorts are intentionally kept small to promote active participation, meaningful collaboration, and strong professional networking, while enabling closer interaction with faculty.
Throughout the programme, you can expect:
- Regular guided interaction in live sessions
- Ongoing participation in both live and independent learning activities
- Exposure to diverse global perspectives
- Collaborative group work and co-creation opportunities
- Continuous faculty and staff support
- Detailed, constructive feedback on your work
- Regular check ins with your Programme Manager
Assessment in the programme reflects the diverse ways sustainability professionals demonstrate their skills in real practice. Throughout your studies, you will engage with essays, reports, reflective assignments, (video) presentations, online discussions, peer feedback, and collaborative group projects. This variety ensures that you can demonstrate your competencies in formats that align with your strengths while also developing new modes of professional communication.
Each core course combines individual assignments with an online oral examination, and in some modules you will also participate in structured group work. The oral exam, held one-on-one with the course professor, gives you the opportunity to articulate your key insights from the course, discuss the main concepts, and explain your individual and group assignments in your own words. This conversation based assessment not only evaluates your understanding but also helps deepen it, reinforcing long-term learning and confidence in applying sustainability concepts in professional contexts.
Final project
Bring everything together with your final project at the end of your study, where you apply the knowledge gained throughout the programme to address a real sustainability challenge an organisation is facing.
Your final project takes place in the last semester and requires you to analyse a company’s sustainability approach while drawing on insights from all six courses. You may use a challenge from your own organisation or choose to work with another company of your choice, allowing you to tackle an issue you are currently working on, facing, or aiming to solve in your professional context.
For this project, you collect data, critically analyse the company’s actions, and produce a detailed report. You also demonstrate how you collaborated with a company contact and an RSM supervisor throughout the process.
Be part of a global and diverse learning community. The average learner brings mid- to senior-level professional experience, creating a rich environment for peer learning. With around 22 participants per class and representation from 17 nationalities, you’ll be part of an intimate yet highly diverse group.
Your peers come from a wide range of academic and professional backgrounds, spanning business, engineering, environmental sciences, and beyond, with many working in sustainability, energy, and related sectors. Learners are based across Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East, ensuring a broad mix of perspectives and real-world insights.
RSM’s online master programme modules are taught by experienced faculty members who are both experts in their fields and active researchers in the field of sustainability management. Get to know some of them here.
Piero Morseletto
Academic Co-Director
Course: Tackling environmental issues
Skills Crash Courses: Finding a research question, Creating powerful visuals
Emilio Marti
Academic Co-Director
Course: Corporate governance for sustainability
Skills Crash Course: AI for sustainability professionals, Qualitative methods
Corinna Frey-Hager
Associate Professor
Course: Tackling social issues
Steve Kennedy
Associate Professor
Course: Business and systems change
Madeleine Meurer
Assistant Professor
Course: Implementing sustainability strategies
Marius van Dijke
Professor in Behavioural Ethics
Course: Business ethics and responsible leadership
Muel Kaptein
Professor of Business Ethics and Integrity Management
Course: Business ethics and responsible leadership
Khadija van der Straaten
Associate Professor
Skills Crash Course: Intercultural management, Quantitative methods
Luke Fiske
Assistant Professor
Skills Crash Course: Persuasive communication
Tony Choi
Assistant Professor
Skills Crash Course; Critically assessing research papers
Ferran Torres
Assistant Professor
Skills Crash Course: ‘Both/and’ thinking
Taslim Alade
Senior Lecturer
Skills Crash Course: Pitching for sustainability
Mirjam Werner
Associate Professor
Skills Crash Course: Qualitative Methods
Jan Lodge
Assistant Professor
