Diploma of Sustainability

This course is available in Semester 1 and Semester 2.
Contact: Client Contact Centre on 9239 8189 or email pascaline.owers@challenger.wa.edu.au

Current diploma students can graduate with a dual Diploma of Sustainability by adding just four units to their course. Challenger's Diploma of Sustainability is available to students already studying any full-time diploma, and involves simply completing four extra units online. The diploma is also offered as a stand-alone course to people with an existing diploma or higher level qualification. The sustainability diploma is delivered through flexible online tutorials, allowing students to work at their own pace and in their own time. For more information, see our:

Sustainability Statement

In partnership with the National Centre for Sustainability, the WA Horticultural and Environmental Science Skills Centre is working towards unified goals in all areas of education for sustainability. 

The Centre runs its training and developmental programs in accordance with the UN World Commission on Environment and Development's sustainable development philosophy – meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.

The Centre is the largest primary industry trainer in WA. It is the only WA registered training organisation to run all streams of the national horticulture package at all of its levels and for all parts of Western Australia. The package contains training in many aspects of sustainable natural resource use and the conservative use of agricultural chemicals (pesticides as well as fertilisers).

Examples of the Centre's commitment to sustainability in Western Australia are as follows:

  • Operates using energy and resource-efficient buildings such as the Environmental Science building at Murdoch Campus, and the laboratories at Rockingham Campus - the facility also acts as a major resource in environmental science training and research.
  • Forges partnerships, committee and executive memberships with industry environmental policy groups such as Parks and Leisure Australia, Irrigation Association Australia, West Australian Farmers Federation, National farmers Federation, Nursery and Garden Industry Association WA and the Turf and Landscape Industry Association WA.
  • Maintains membership with the Nursery Industry Accreditation Scheme, Australia - an industry best practice and continuous improvement certification system where membership is conferred on the basis of effective management of the dieback organism Phytophthora, water, nutrients, agricultural crop protection products and the work environment.
  • Forges partnership with community revegetation groups.
  • Partnership with Murdoch University in delivery of sustainable development applied degree pathways.
  • Delivers Conservation and Land Management study programs aimed at practical urban and rural natural resource stakeholders.
  • Delivers Applied and Environmental Science study programs from basic to advanced levels.
  • Runs industry up-skilling programs, employment-based training and part-time study programs that achieve an extremely high level of penetration into the land-use and water industries, both urban and rural.
  • Develops flexible learning materials for pesticide application technology and regulatory compliance training and works with WA Health Department.  
  • Works with community to develop workskills and employment orientation in special interest groups – the physically and intellectually disabled, Youth at Risk, remote communities and remote learners and indigenous communities. We run Rural Operations traineeships and institutional delivery specifically constructed to ensure continuous employment in rural towns.