Case Study: Interview with TAFE NSW, ISSP Organizational Member

Recently, we interviewed Belinda Bean, MSc Sustainable Development, about how she teaches the next generation of sustainability practitioners.


Belinda is a faculty member at TAFE NSW, one of Australia's leading vocational education and training providers. She teaches students who are studying to earn their Higher Education Diploma of Sustainable Practice or Undergraduate Certificate in Sustainable Practice.

Their Diploma of Sustainable Practice (DoSP) won the prestigious Green Gown Award Australasia in the Next Generation Learning & Skills category.

Through your experience as an impact strategist, what sets the Diploma of Sustainable Practice at TAFE NSW apart from other similar programs?


The DoSP stands out for its hands-on, project-based approach, where students apply sustainability skills from day one, making real-world impacts through workplace or community projects. The course integrates key trends like mandatory disclosure and GenAI, ensuring students stay at the forefront of sustainability while receiving mentoring from industry experts.


How does the DoSP prepare students for the Sustainability Excellence Associate credential exam?


The DoSP aligns with ISSP standards and covers essential topics like sustainability strategy, performance analysis, and project implementation. Through real-world projects and a balance of theory and application, students gain the comprehensive knowledge needed to confidently sit for the SEA credential exam.


Why do you enjoy teaching sustainability at TAFE NSW?


I enjoy teaching sustainability at TAFE NSW because the impact is immediate — students apply their learning in real-world contexts, driving meaningful change. The collaborative environment and passionate students make teaching rewarding, knowing we’re all contributing to meaningful change.


What are some examples of how students or alumni have put their sustainability skills into action?


Students lead impactful projects whilst studying, like one that diverted 96 tonnes of car bumper bars from landfill and another that helped a paper mill reduce 646 tonnes of waste annually (and saving over $64,000). These projects showcase the practical skills our graduates bring to drive sustainability in various industries.


Student Spotlights

Two recent graduates from the Diploma of Sustainable Practice (DoSP) program were awarded TAFE NSW Student of the Year in 2020 and 2024. Given the number of courses delivered across all of TAFE NSW, this is significant. Sustainability students are making a name for themselves!

TAFE NSW helps Berowra charity queen build a more sustainable future

Rebecca Healy's long-held passion for sustainability prompted her unlikely career pivot in 2021 to launch a plastic recycling charity, Boxhead Plastics. The charity’s extraordinary success grew from recycling 1.2 tonnes of plastic waste in 2021 to recycling 96,000 tonnes less than three years later.

Read her story

Housing leader credits TAFE NSW with helping her attract $380k in grant funding

Waddi Housing and Advancement Corporation coordinator Tamileigh Chirgwin said completing the Diploma of Sustainable Practice at TAFE NSW helped the Waddi Housing board to attract almost $400,000 worth of grant funding and transform how she approaches her role.

Read her story

Does your higher education institution provide a sustainability program?

Consider our organizational membership, which includes courses, credentialing, and networking for students.

Read perspectives from the ISSP blog

By Jacqueline Kerr, PHD May 27, 2026
May 2026 We spend enormous energy telling people what needs to change, and very little time thinking about how change actually happens. Most sustainability efforts inside organizations are built around the individual. Convince the right person. Model the right behavior. Win the argument in the room. And to be fair, that approach gets things moving. Until it doesn't. The real barrier isn't information. It isn't even intent. It's the conditions we create for people to change together. What I'm seeing in the most effective organizations isn't individual champions doing heroic work. It's something more structural: well-designed groups where people shift together, hold each other accountable, and build something that doesn't collapse when one person leaves the room.
By Nitesh Dullabh April 28, 2026
April 2026 I walked away from a recent webinar with a lingering thought: we’ve spent years improving supply chains, but very little time truly rethinking them. Most of the systems we rely on today were built for efficiency - to move goods faster, cheaper, at scale. And to be fair, they’ve done that remarkably well. But they were never designed for the complexity we’re now facing: climate volatility, geopolitical and tariff uncertainty, water stress, soil degradation, and widening inequities across supply chains. So what do we do? We add layers - more audits, more reporting, more standards. Necessary? Yes. Sufficient? Not really. The deeper issue is not performance - it’s creating healthy conditions for design and structure. What I’m seeing instead, and what I believe is the real shift underway, is the move toward regenerative partnerships . Not transactional relationships, but systems of collaboration that are designed to endure, adapt, and regenerate value over time through and with relational relationships. 
By By Amy Hall, MSc, Education Lead, TripleWin Advisory March 23, 2026
March 23, 2026 I spend a lot of time thinking about how we teach sustainability. Not just the what , but the how and why . At TripleWin Advisory , a woman-founded, -owned, and -led sustainability consultancy and registered public benefit company, we believe real progress on circularity requires more than good intentions. It requires practitioners who are genuinely equipped to act. That conviction is what led us to develop two courses now available through ISSP: Cultivate and Mitigate . Both courses have since been adopted by universities and are reaching sustainability students across the country. Knowing what went into building them makes me want to share the story behind each one. Mitigate: Built From Practice, Not Textbooks Mitigate was created from hands-on work with partners tackling one of the most pressing issues in sustainability: food waste. Reducing food waste is consistently ranked among the highest-impact solutions to climate change, and yet it remains one of the most underfunded and under-addressed areas in the field. TripleWin Advisory has worked with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment (PCFWC) , a public-private partnership whose frameworks were ultimately adopted at the national level. Those assets, that research, and those hard-won insights form the backbone of Mitigate. When we talk about food waste reduction strategies in this course, we're drawing on frameworks that have been tested and refined in real supply chains and policy environments. For learners who want to do this work professionally, that grounding matters. The University of Wisconsin has integrated Mitigate into their undergraduate and graduate sustainability programs, which speaks to what the course offers academically: rigorous, applied content that bridges the classroom and the field.
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