人类社会与地球之间的关系创造了当今许多最棘手的全球挑战。在过去的50年中，地球上的人口翻了一番，预计到2050年将增长到90亿。如果乘以人均消费率的增长，其结果是自然资源的加速消耗，快速的城市化，全球水资源和能源短缺，全球粮食供应压力，宝贵的生物多样性丧失，全球健康挑战和社会动荡加剧。这些问题的关键特征是它们的多学科范围和规模，不仅涉及技术问题，而且还涉及历史，社会，政治，道德，环境，经济和美学问题。全球环境可持续性计划使学生了解，创新并领导努力以可持续方式改变自然环境。
The relationship between human societies and the planet have created many of today's most intractable global challenges. Over the past 50 years, Earth's human population has doubled and is projected to increase to 9 billion by 2050. When multiplied by a growing per-capita rate of consumption, the resulting effect is an accelerated depletion of natural resources, rapid urbanization, worldwide water and energy shortages, pressure on global food supplies, loss of precious biodiversity, increasing global health challenges and social upheaval. A key characteristic of these problems is their multidisciplinary scope and scale, encompassing not only technical issues, but also historical, social, political, ethical, environmental, economic, and aesthetic ones. The Global Environments Sustainability program prepares students to understand, innovate and lead efforts to sustainably transform the physical environment.