Program Overview

Why Consider an Environmental Policy major?

Do you want to make a difference in protecting the environment and the public good, as well as diversify access to resources for everyone? WWU’s College of the Environment’s BA degree in Environmental Policy focuses on the policies and practices that make that happen. The program focuses on resource sustainability and environmental resilience, while at the same time querying positionalities and cultural-economic lenses around resource access in diverse populations and landscapes. Over 200 students have received this BA degree, many of whom have attained professional careers in policy management, program implementation, and action planning for positive environmental change.
The program focuses on problem solving and implementing shared visions to effect laws and policies that monitor and manage environmental climate change.  Such laws and policies protect diverse, culturally appropriate, health-driven, economically viable landscapes - in the United States and throughout the world.  We are proud to offer this degree to our students and to continue our program’s strong-community partnerships worldwide, in which students apply their learning to assist communities in organizing for sustainable futures.

Environmental Policy
This major supports students in exploring how stakeholders attempt to regulate pollution (for the long-term) natural resources, protect natural spaces, and counter environmental disturbances. It emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to solving urban problems that face communities. Students can choose from the following emphases: Climate/Energy, Land Use, or Food Security.
With sustainability and climate change on the forefront of humanity’s greatest social and ethical problem, students studying environmental policy will acquire knowledge on “how” government works, and how to be most effect in solving global isses. 
The program prepares students with the knowledge and skills needed to make positive changes towards a socially and environmentally just world. Graduates are prepared for professional careers in policy agencies, consulting firms, and nonprofit organizations at the local, state, and federal levels of government, as well as for advanced graduate study.