Sustainability & the Built Environment

Find Purpose in Facilitating Prosperity for People & Planet

Sustainability and the Built Environment (SBE) is one of the newest and fastest growing academic programs within the University of Florida College of Design, Construction, and Planning (DCP). Together, we are building bridges to better human habits and habitats.

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Our Commitment to Past, Present, & Future

Upon hindsight, we honor our past heritage. With insight, we elevate the solutions hidden in the present problems. Through foresight, we foster adaptive capacity for the uncertain changes and challenges emerging from a future embedded in the seeds we plant today.

Our Interdisciplinary Approach

Our unique interdisciplinary approach branches the broad principles and practices from the DCP professions in a more generalist framework. We perceive and progress through the four dimensional lens of ecological (planet), cultural (purpose), social (people), and economical (prosperity) livelihoods. In learning, SBE students leverage the applied sustainability and resilience science, alongside the collective change frameworks, established or enhanced by institutional innovators and leaders, including (though not limited to) the following:

SBE empowers students to nurture nature’s regenerative economy and protect our planetary safe operating space (SOS). We act on behalf of our collective humanity and all of the other life forms with whom we have co-evolved. In other words…

To make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.

– R. Buckminster Fuller via BFI
Learn More @ Why SBE Here & Now?

SBE Program | Major & Minor

We offer both a major and a minor undergraduate degree and welcome students who select us as incoming freshmen, find us through a change of majors, or join us as a transfer student. 

Learn More @ Our Undergraduate Education Summary

The SBE major is a four-year, 120-credit hours degree program leading to Bachelor of Science in Sustainability and the Built Environment (BSSBE). The SBE minor is offered to other majors across campus with a requirement of 15 credit hours completed.

Major in SBE > UF Catalog
Minor in SBE > UF Catalog

SBE Program | Specializations & Disciplinary Domains

The SBE major degree offers two specializations and three degree disciplinary domains.

Interdisciplinary > UF Catalog

For additional context about the potential professional pathways in this specialization, visit our Green Protocols and Systems Thinking discipline pages.

Geodesign > UF Catalog

For additional context about the potential professional pathways in this specialization, visit our Geodesign discipline page.

MISD Program | For Professionals Returning & Undergraduates Combining

Starting Fall 2022, the SBE program launches the Master of Integrated Sustainable Development (MISD) graduate degree program. This exciting new course of study is available to existing professionals returning to school for a graduate degree and current undergraduate students looking to combine their BSSBE + MISD degrees in an accelerated path.

Master of Integrated Sustainable Development (MISD)
Combined Degree Education

The Green Building Learning Collaborative (GBLC) connects SBE to practicing sustainability professionals across a multitude of planning, design, engineering, construction, management and related industries working to manifest and manage our built environment for the quadruple bottom line of planet, people, purpose, and prosperity.

Learn More @ Our GBLC Summary

How to Navigate Our Website

Our web presence answers common questions and sheds light on the why, who, what, where, when, and how that animate our story and lay a pathway for your journey as a change agent. We welcome all weavers as we seek the wisdom and strength to walk through the bottleneck of the Anthropocene to a flourishing place on the other side.

Find purpose in facilitating prosperity for people and planet. SBE the change…

Our Story

SBE Purposeful

Learn why SBE here and now as you explore our purpose and program parameters.

See Our Perspective

SBE Collective

Follow who makes SBE move as you meet our faculty, staff, students, and collaborators.

Meet Our Community

Your Journey

SBE Empowered

Explore what SBE offers learners at many levels through empowered educational opportunities across various life stages.

Seize the Day

SBE Determined

Determine where to next as you realize your best self through active engagement on campus and within our community.

Find Your Way

SBE Connected

Connect with our people and partners as you learn how to participate in, donate to, and collaborate with our program as we celebrate mutual success. Our most ambitious connections take place in our Green Building Learning Collaborative (GBLC).

Have Your Say

News, Events & Insights

When Sustainability and the Built Environment (SBE) happens, we are there for the progress. Explore our present and past posts to follow program news, track events, and glean insights on the path to a better tomorrow, together.

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