Environmental Science and Public Policy Concentration

The environmental challenges confronting humanity — climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, air and soil pollution, and the degradation of ecosystems on which billions of people depend — are neither purely scientific problems nor purely political ones. Understanding them and taking action to remediate them requires knowledge of both disciplinary areas. An environmental scientist who cannot communicate across the boundary of politics and economics risks producing knowledge that sits unused. A policymaker who does not understand the physical, chemical and biological realities of the systems will design responses that fail to address the underlying problems.

The Environmental Science and Public Policy (ESPP) concentration at Harvard exists to produce students who understand both the scientific foundations of environmental problems and the social, political, and economic contexts in which solutions must be built. A graduate of ESPP can effectively work among experts of these two worlds.