The Diploma in Social Responsibility & Sustainability is a unique blended learning program designed for working professionals who want to deepen their practice while continuing to work full-time.
Delivered over 12 months, the diploma combines immersive in-person learning in Toronto with live online webinars, applied assignments, mentorship, and a capstone project grounded in your own professional context. This flexible format allows you to build practical skills, expand your network, and apply your learning directly to real challenges in your organization, sector, or community.
The curriculum is intentionally practical and interdisciplinary, critically exploring sustainability, ESG, social impact, governance, accountability, strategy, implementation, and systems leadership. Throughout the year, you will learn alongside a diverse cohort of professionals and engage with leading practitioners, researchers, and sector leaders working across sustainability and social responsibility practice.
Two multi-day in-person intensive modules on the historic University of St. Michael’s College campus at the University of Toronto anchor the academic year. Between modules, learners participate in live online webinars and continue developing their applied assignments and capstone project with mentorship and faculty support.
Designed to meet the realities of adult and professional learning, the diploma offers a rigorous, applied educational experience with flexibility for busy professional and personal schedules—while creating meaningful opportunities for connection, reflection, and immediate application in practice.
A Program that Connects Learning with Practice
You will learn from experienced practitioners, engage with peers, and apply new concepts directly to your own context. Each component is designed to move you from understanding core concepts in sustainability, social responsibility, ESG & social impact to practical, effective implementation of initiatives and analyses that support real change.
Module 1
The Sustainability Practitioner Now
October 19–22, 2026, in person on campus at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto
Module 1 establishes the intellectual and practical foundation for the diploma. Across four immersive days, learners examine how sustainability work is evolving across sectors and what leadership is required to move sustainability from commitment to credible practice in complex organizations.
Sustainability Practice in Context
The module begins by situating learners within the current sustainability landscape. Together, the cohort explores how sustainability, ESG, and social responsibility are changing across industries in response to regulation, stakeholder expectations, organizational accountability, and shifting public expectations.
Topics include:
- ESG and sustainability trends across sectors
- Regulatory and disclosure pressures
- Stakeholder expectations and organizational legitimacy
- Public trust, governance, and accountability structures
- The changing role of the sustainability practitioner
This opening section also introduces the capstone process, with learners beginning to identify a real-world sustainability issue, challenge, or opportunity they will develop across the year.
Communication and Leadership Practice
Day two focuses on the human side of sustainability work: how change happens through communication, dialogue, influence, and relationship-building.
Learners explore:
- Communicating across teams and functions
- Building trust and stakeholder buy-in
- Navigating resistance to change
- Facilitating difficult conversations
- Leading without formal authority
- Sustainability leadership in cross-functional environments
This session emphasizes that successful sustainability practice depends not only on technical knowledge, but on the ability to move people, ideas, and organizations toward change.
Climate, Nature and Emerging Issues
The third day grounds sustainability practice in the material environmental and social realities shaping organizations today.
Topics include:
- Climate risk and resilience
- Biodiversity loss and nature-related business risk
- Sustainable finance
- Supply chains and responsible sourcing
- Indigenous rights and sustainability practice
- Emerging sector-specific sustainability challenges
Learners are invited to connect global sustainability issues with local organizational decision-making and strategic planning.
AI, Ethics and Systems Leadership
The final day explores the growing relationship between sustainability, technology, ethics, and leadership in complex systems.
Topics include:
- Governance of AI systems
- Transparency and accountability in AI use
- Ethical implications of AI in organizational practice
- Risks of bias and misuse
- Environmental and energy implications of AI technologies
- Systems leadership for navigating complexity and uncertainty
Module 1 concludes with learners reflecting on what kinds of leadership are needed to create meaningful, lasting sustainability change—and how this connects to their own professional practice and capstone project.
Module 2
From Commitments to Change
May 3–6, 2027, in person on campus at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto
Module 2 shifts from analysis to execution. Where Module 1 focuses on context, leadership, and emerging issues, Module 2 asks what it takes to move sustainability from strategy to implementation inside real organizations.
This second intensive is highly applied and directly connected to each learner’s capstone project.
Strategy and Implementation
Learners begin by examining how sustainability strategies are developed, prioritized, and operationalized in practice.
Topics include:
- Strategic planning for sustainability
- Materiality assessment
- Governance and accountability structures
- Building implementation roadmaps
- Resource planning and prioritization
- Timelines, dependencies, and execution
- Decision-making in complex organizations
Learners apply these tools directly to their capstone projects, identifying practical pathways for implementation in their own organizational context.
Social Impact and Community Investment
This section expands sustainability practice beyond the organization to include relationships with communities, rights-holders, and stakeholders.
Topics include:
- Theory of Change
- Community accountability
- Stakeholder voice and participation
- Equity and access
- Inclusion in sustainability practice
- Social impact frameworks
- Identifying and responding to unintended consequences
The focus is on how organizations practice responsibility with communities—not simply on behalf of them.
Reporting, Measurement and Credibility
The final practitioner-focused sessions address accountability, measurement, and the growing importance of credible reporting.
Topics include:
- Sustainability reporting standards
- Disclosure frameworks
- Metrics and measurement
- Evidence gathering and substantiation
- Impact communication
- Greenwashing risk
- Credibility and accountability in public claims
Learners consider how reporting can function not only as compliance, but as a tool for transparency, strategy, and public accountability.
Capstone Presentations
Module 2 culminates in capstone presentations to peers, faculty, and invited guests.
Each learner presents a substantial applied project that synthesizes learning from across the year—bringing together strategy, implementation, impact, accountability, and evidence into a professional, decision-ready proposal connected to their workplace, sector, or community.
Webinars, Assignments & Mentorship
Learning continues between modules through live webinars, applied assignments, mentorship, and ongoing capstone development—creating continuity across the full academic year.
Live Webinar Series
The webinar series extends learning between in-person sessions and connects learners with diverse voices working at the forefront of sustainability and social responsibility practice.
Webinar themes include:
The Sustainability Practitioner in 2026
How sustainability roles are evolving across sectors, and what leadership capacities are increasingly required in today’s professional landscape.
Systems Change and Critical Practice
Exploring how social and organizational change requires both technical solutions and critical reflection on systems, structures, and power.
Climate and Nature
Connecting global environmental challenges to local organizational strategy, resilience planning, and decision-making.
Reporting and Accountability
Examining how reporting can function as a tool for governance, transparency, credibility, and accountability.
Inclusion Beyond DEI
Considering inclusion through the lenses of rights, belonging, dignity, access, participation, and systemic accountability.
Impact Measurement
Designing meaningful indicators, outcomes, and evidence frameworks across sectors without overclaiming impact.
Sustainable Procurement and Supply Chains
Understanding how sustainability is operationalized through sourcing, supplier relationships, procurement decisions, and traceability.
Applied Assignments
Two scaffolded assignments provide structured opportunities for learners to apply program concepts directly to their own professional context.
Assignments are practical rather than academic in orientation and focus on:
- organizational analysis
- strategy development
- implementation planning
- accountability and impact
- applying course frameworks to real sustainability challenges
These assignments support capstone development and allow learners to test ideas in real time within their organizations or sectors.
Mentorship & Capstone Development
Each learner is paired with a mentor whose expertise aligns with their professional context and capstone topic.
Mentors work with learners throughout the year to:
- support capstone development and refinement
- provide feedback on strategy and implementation
- guide reflection on learning and professional practice
- offer perspective from relevant sector or subject-matter experience
The capstone project is the culminating integrative project of the diploma: a substantial applied project focused on a real sustainability challenge, opportunity, or strategic initiative relevant to the learner’s work.
Developed across the year through coursework, webinars, assignments, mentorship, and peer exchange, the capstone is presented during Module 2 and finalized in summer 2027.