Master of Sustainable Business (MSusBus)

Sara Walton:

Kia ora koutou, haere mai and welcome to this online webinar about the Masters of Sustainable Business.
 
My name is Sara. I'm a professor of Sustainable Business in the Business School here at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. My area is mostly around sustainability, climate change and business. And I teach and research in those areas, and you can see there some of the key areas in which I teach.

[Powerpoint slide with image of Sara and the following content on screen:

Professor Sara Walton

• Head of Department of Management.
• Deputy Dean of the Otago Business School.
• I teach and research in the area of sustainability, climate change and business.
• My key areas of expertise include: carbon footprints, industry readiness for climate change, innovation for environmental sustainability, sustainable and low carbon transitions, analysing and understanding environmental conflicts and researching work in changing futures]

And I actually started this program about 10 years ago on campus. But today we're going to talk about the online program. So I'll focus more on that, but I'll probably touch a little bit on other things as we go through.

So why Sustainable Business? Well, increasingly organisations are having to respond to calls from stakeholders to be sustainable, or they're deciding themselves that it sits more comfortably with their values to think about environmental and social impacts of the activities of which their business or their products and services are having on the world.

And I mean, I feel like I don't almost need to explain this in the year 2026, but we're seeing those increasing calls all the time.

Furthermore, there's also aspects around sustainability that help an organization to build resilience. And we're seeing increasing levels of shock and turbulence in our business environment, where organisations that have thought about sustainability and their social environmental impacts are more prepared with many of those different shocks.

And some of those can be impacts of climate change, thinking about climate risk, and thinking about opportunities around climate risk. But I could go on all day about why sustainable business, and I won't do too much, but hopefully just convincing you around this really important topic.

So out of that we decided to design a Masters in Sustainable Business. This is a taught Masters program. So it has a mixture of papers and different aspects to it. And it's really honing in on how businesses can become or respond to this notion of sustainability.

We have accreditation with the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals with our program. That's an institute out of the UK, but a global institute, and so our program has been recognised as training sustainability professionals, which is, one of the key things around this Masters has been to respond to that increasing professionalization and career structures around sustainability that we're seeing in the workplace and providing the skills and competencies to be able to step into sustainability roles.

This Masters qualification is quite flexible. We've got, we usually teach, for example, in the evenings. So it's designed to fit in around people who are already working who want to upskill in this area or move into this area into the workplace.

On campus it runs for 12 months, but online it's 24 months part-time as well.

So, and also I guess a final aspect here is around it being, it is a very practical course. We teach a number of very practical skills alongside some of the theory to help you understand things, for example, like behaviour change, what systems theory is, to think about the wider concepts around sustainability, but also some really practical things like how to do a carbon footprint that sit alongside that.

So there's a real mixture in the course.

We have, as I mentioned before, weekly online class meetings for the online programmes. These are run by us. So you've got faculty each week for a few hours. Usually very discussion based, often we run, we are watching a bit of the lecture beforehand. You might have some readings to do, and you come to class ready to actually discuss and get into the issues, because that's what we find with sustainability is there's no often one right answer and it's actually having that conversation amongst your cohort and with your teacher and the class that actually helps cocreate that knowledge throughout the programme.

So it is a 100% online. There's no need to have to come down to Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, but you know if you wanted to come down to Ōtepoti, we're all you're always welcome to come and see us as well, but the idea really is that you're able to continue to work, continue to have your life and study at the same time.

So just to clarify around the difference between the online and the on-campus. The on-campus program is full-time for 12 months usually, and we do have some students part-time over 24. This is largely face-to-face learning and here at the University on campus.

So you have direct access to campus resources, all of us, and definitely have a lot of peer networking. So, we really strongly encourage that cohort development because they're going to be your peeps both on campus in your learning environment, but also when you leave as well, your networking.

Online is part-time only and that's over 24 months. You can extend that out depending on different projects. But we don't have a full-time option for that.

So, you run one paper at a time for 12 weeks, have a break, and then run another paper for 12 weeks. We're finding that model is quite successful with most of our students.

So pretty much, it's a flexible learning environment as I described before. There can be things to do before class, but we have these largely discussion-based class that's using theory, using our practical experience to create a really rich learning environment.

And as I mentioned before, both programmes have that same accredited material across them. So they're very similar. Sometimes it's the same person teaching the on-campus and the online as well. It's just delivered remotely. So you can be wherever you are in the world and here across the motu.

We have three different learning pathways, both on campus and online.

So we have a full coursework pathway, which means that you do all papers for your whole programme. Or you could do an applied project pathway, which means you do seven papers and a project.

And so those seven papers, as I mentioned before, on the online, are back-to-back with a break in between, and then you move into an applied project.

For applied projects we're strongly working with a number of different companies that come to us with different problems, and you can choose which particular company you want to work with. But there is also the opportunity there to work with your own organisation that you might be keen to work with.

The final pathway is a dissertation pathway where you do six papers and what we call a 60-point thesis, which is a longer thesis. This is probably about over 20,000 words, 20 to 25,000 words, and often takes a more theoretical approach to the problem.

Whereas the applied project is very applied and is really the problem comes from the real world. The dissertation pathway, the problem comes often from literature. So you see a gap in the knowledge that we have and you want to address that through your research.

Any one of those pathways can be taken, and as you go through your papers you can swap as well. So you can set yourself up, but you can also change your mind. If you get to the end of six papers and you think, oh, I don't want to do a dissertation any longer, you can swap into a course way.

So we're quite flexible across those different pathways, obviously until it becomes nonflexible.

Who is the MSusBus for?

So we've had a real variety of people in our online cohorts, and we've had usually every cohort is slightly different and all fantastic in their own way, we build the cohort together and really create a strong learning community online and offline.
So we've had people who are already working in an organisations that want to pick up some sustainability and move into a sustainability role. That's often quite common because I guess there's been a big shift over the last few years where sustainability was something that people could almost step into with lots of different backgrounds, whereas now it's seen there's actually a number of different skills that are needed for sustainability positions and organisations.

So understanding climate risk, understanding carbon footprints, decarbonization, all of these different aspects are really important now to be able to step into these sustainability roles, and that's really what our programme is strongly targeting and making sure that our students have the competencies to do that.

So we also have people who are already working in sustainability roles and want to develop their competencies further and may want to also take the dissertation pathway where they can do some research on something that they found to be an issue in their organisation.

And again, things like there around career change, consulting. There's a lot of work in consulting around sustainability. And again, the online option gives you the opportunity to be able to study from wherever you are, so you don't have to leave your job to come down to Otago. You can carry on in that role and you never know, something may come up as you're studying to move into a sustainability role that you're looking for.

The entry requirements are any bachelor's degree. So it doesn't matter what your bachelor's degree is, with an average grade of at least a B. Now, mostly we're really looking at your final year of study when we're really focusing in on that B.

If you are a little bit on the edge there, it's well worth getting in touch with us or putting in an application, and we're highly likely to look at that because we'll look at that alongside CV and other experience as well.

And yes, so we can look at that experience there in terms of alternative qualifications and experience to create a case for your entry into the programme.

So, you know, don't, if you studied years ago and you think, oh, I didn't, I had too much fun partying and your grades aren't quite reaching it, then just get in touch with us and we'll have a look alongside that to see, you know, and again that passion around sustainability and where you want to take your future is also really important.

You can apply directly through the University of Otago application portal. So, you don't, as I said, you don't have to get in touch with us. You can put your application straight in there, and applications are open now for our 2027 intake.

So where can this take you? We've had students go all sorts of places. Very exciting. We've had students end up working for consultancies that, you know, the big four, for different NGOs, travel abroad, many different options where our students have gone.

But what we're seeing, as I mentioned before, is that increasing professionalisation in the sustainability field. So we're seeing a lot of people with these qualifications either being able to move up into those sustainability manager roles or coming in in those entry roles as sustainability advisers, consultants, as well as policy students like in Reserve Bank as well, you know, heading into different sort of government departments.

So lots of different places where this can take you, because these qualifications are particularly exciting in this field, and it is a field which recognised every year with the there's a report done every year on sustainability practitioners in Aotearoa that actually a number don't have these qualifications.

So this really does give you an edge in the workplace.

Now I'd like to introduce you to one of our online students, Anne Gatenby. Anne studied in our first cohort of online students, which was very exciting to be able to offer that.
At the time Anne was working at Emerson's here in Dunedin. But during her study she took up a role now at Silver Fern Farms, which was one of the cases, I guess what I was talking about, that during the study you can actually find yourself moving into the career choice that you're looking for.

But I'll let Anne explain a little bit about her role.

Anne Gatenby:

Kia ora

I work at Silver Fern Farms as a Senior Analyst Sustainability & Risk.

What that means is sustainability is really important to Silver Fern Farms's market position and also reputation. In within the world these days, when we're making claims we have to be really careful that those are credible.

So quite a lot of my time is spent backing up the claims that we can make in market and analysing how we actually are performing or providing specific info on our sustainability performance to our customers and also increasingly to our suppliers as well to help them with understanding their impact.

I do a lot of work with data, obviously being my title. So measuring emissions and working on loan sustainability linked loan performance work as well, but I also spend a lot of time engaging with people across the business and trying to bring about change in a positive way.

Sara Walton:

Awesome. Thanks. Then what motivated you to study the Master of Sustainable Business?

Anne Gatenby:

Well, I have an 11-year-old now, so he was a little bit younger, and I think after years of working in food manufacturing I moved to a much smaller craft brewery.

And whereas in the past, excuse me, where there's a thousand people you don't really see the waste and the impact so much. It's kind of taken away and dealt with by a department and you don't see the impact of your decisions.

Whereas working in a small place, if I made a decision to reject some packaging, suddenly the rubbish skips and recycling skips were full. And it was those kind of understanding my impact.

I also think having a son kind of made the environmental awareness that I already have become so much bigger in terms of intergenerational perspective and thinking about possible mokopuna and what life would be like for him when he was my age and really wanting to do something about that.

Yeah, that was probably the key points.

Sara Walton:

And so when, so what sort of stage in your career were you when you came into the Masters of Sustainable Business and then how did that help you and where you wanted to go?

Anne Gatenby:

So I worked as a Packaging Manager and I'd worked in food manufacturing for my whole career post studying Food Science at Otago.

And I'd always done production management or quality management, food safety, and I think I got a little bit stuck in a rut and I kind of indicated that I wanted to move into environment within my organisation and been off on a one-day short course.

But I just wanted to move faster, learn more, and bring about more change.

So the Masters offered the opportunity to do that kind of get the qualifications to make a career shift really.

Sara Walton:

Awesome. And how did you find the online classes? Did you feel connected to your cohort?

Anne Gatenby:

Yeah, very much so. I did an in-person class for my final paper because I wanted to see if I was missing out on anything. And I realised that the interaction online was better.

And I loved that in the online classes, the lecturers had the confidence to give us some information and some readings and start off with some key points and then open up for input from the cohort.

And there was just, I guess because there was such a mix of experience and professions and skills, that there was just so much that you could take from other people's experience of those themes in their world and how that could apply to your world.

It was really good for opening your mind and kind of growing your understanding.

Yes, I particularly loved the energy of the younger graduates that joined us as well. They were quite good for challenging mindset as well.

Sara Walton:

I have to say as a teacher it's fun to teach from that regard as well. There's lots of discussion in the class.

What were the some of the highlights for you of the program?

Anne Gatenby:

I think one of the biggest highlights was that I've realized how much learning energises me and helping to keep a growth mindset actually makes your whole life, I don't know, just more, just more ability to appreciate and to learn and to bring about positive change.
So I still make sure that I keep learning now in sustainability for the same reason.

Also realising that I hadn't been to uni for what, since 2000 when I graduated, just gave my age away. But just realising that I could still cut the mustard with academic content and that I could still learn, was just amazing.

I suppose another highlight is how enabled it was now compared to when I went to university and having full access to the library from home while my son sat on the floor having a snack or in a lecture just made it so much easier to upskill.

I guess another highlight, it was the systems view. You know, come in thinking that you reduce waste by encouraging your team to put things in the right bin and providing the right bin and then just kind of understanding the wider influences beyond that at a systems level and behavioural habits.

Just really open my eyes a lot.

Sara Walton:

And just going back to, I guess, you being in the library and your son sitting on the floor, you know, having a snack, how did you balance the work study aspect?

Anne Gatenby:

One of the first papers was really helpful actually because it was a learning and development paper, and there was, I still remember the line that came up in one of the first lectures, which was what things are you consciously choosing to leave behind so that you don't carry them from meeting to meeting and influence your day and your home life and the people around you.

And it really made me think about how you, you should put those breaks between things and so, and yeah, so just consciously go I'm studying now, this is what I'm focusing on. I'm doing family now and this is what I'm focusing on and a bit of meditation helped as well.

Sara Walton:

Was there anything that surprised you about your studies?

Anne Gatenby:

Yeah, I think very much the amount of interaction that you have in an online class because I really wasn't sure that there would be, but the little breakout rooms there was much more discussion and with the whole class because the rooms were kind of assigned randomly than I had in my in-person class where you get fall in a habit and start sitting with the same people every day. Okay.

Yeah, I guess just that systems view again.

I did a project looking at how to reduce the waste from protective clothing and food manufacturing. And my aha moment was when I realised that if you made the best option for the people that was reusable and comfortable, you didn't kind of have to force people to change behaviour. You created something that they preferred.

So, that was pretty cool over single-use disposable items.
Yeah.

Sara Walton:

That's really powerful. And finally, what advice might you have for someone who's considering to study on the online Master of Sustainable Business?

Anne Gatenby:

Yeah, I thought about this question in advance.

So for me, I wasn't sure if I had the right academic experience and I had the questions about an online environment versus in person.

And so one of the best things that I did was have a Zoom call with you, Sara, actually, since you were Programme Director then, and just kind of talk about those doubts and decide to jump in and do it anyway.

So I signed up late and joined the second lecture of the first paper as quite a last minute discuss, uh, decision, and I'd very much say do that. Just ask questions and sign up.

Yeah, and my other piece of advice is at the end of the Masters, the ISEP membership, so you can get sustainability practitioner certification, which I did, and by having the Masters it means you don't have to do the exams for that, which are quite intense.

So that's only for, I think, 2 years. So my advice would be to start documenting your sustainability experience at work so that you've got that and go through the process as soon as you're ready.

Sara Walton:

Great advice.

And thank you so much Anne for coming tonight to talk about that.

And I guess going back to Anne's point, if you do have any questions, the best thing you can do is reach out and have a conversation with us.

Hopefully we're as enthusiastic and persuasive as we are with Anne because we so enjoyed having Anne as part of the program and watching her go through the program and do her project and actually make a difference in the world.

So just feel free to reach out to the email address sustainablebusiness@otago.ac.nz.

A person will get back to you and we can also arrange a time to have a Zoom and have a chat and work through, you know, where you're at and what might be best and how you can study through this programme.

I understand that there's been questions coming through, and we'll also respond to those as best we can, and if we haven't responded to them now we'll respond to them as soon as possible.

Please just reach out with any questions.

Thank you very much for coming along tonight. I wish you all the best with any choices that you're trying to make. And I hope that we can see you soon studying with us.

Ka kite