Why environmental scientists need ethics training more than ever before

In the face of mounting environmental crises, scientists and decision-makers must often balance complex and competing goals, including mitigating climate change, conserving biodiversity, and supporting human livelihoods (1). These goals sometimes align to produce win–win outcomes for people, animals, and ecosystems—for example, community-based conservation projects or crop-planting incentives that benefit farmers and pollinators. More often, they involve difficult trade-offs (2), such as whether to use land for much-needed agriculture or preserve it for endangered species.

To prepare students to develop just and sustainable solutions to a growing array of environmental challenges that intensify as the human footprint grows, we must train students not only as scientists and engineers, but also as ethicists. Image credit: Shutterstock/NayaDadara.

To address such questions, environmental scientists and practitioners must balance values and weigh immediate needs against long-term sustainability. Decisions about how to navigate these challenges depend not only on technical expertise, but also on judgments about which individuals, populations, species, or regions have more social or environmental priority and what our obligations are toward them (3, 4). For example, emerging technologies such as geoengineering raise questions about acceptable risks at planetary scales and who has the authority to make such decisions (5). Similarly, de-extinction technologies are entangled with questions about the manipulation of natural processes, obligations to extinct species, and the allocations of scientific and conservation resources (6). Even more fundamental environmental questions, such as what constitutes a “healthy” ecosystem and how to measure it, are, at their core, decisions about what stakeholders value and what constitutes a “good” ecological state in a changing world (7).

A primary goal of environmentally focused higher education—whether in conservation, ecology, or engineering—is to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to address the pressing challenges of a changing planet. While many students graduate prepared for the technical aspect of these crises, evidence suggests that they are far less prepared for the ethical decisions they will face (8, 9). Students and faculty are increasingly calling for formal ethics training in environmental science curricula (8, 9). Yet, most environmental programs offer none. And where such courses exist, they are rarely required (Fig. 1). To prepare students to develop just and sustainable solutions, we must train them not only as scientists and engineers, but also as ethicists.

Fig. 1.

Environmental ethics courses required or offered for undergraduate degrees (n = 108), master’s degrees (n = 72), and doctoral degrees (n = 41) at the top 25 universities for environment/ecology as listed by U.S. News & World Report in 2025. Offerings are categorized as unknown if the course listings are not available online, not available in English, or it is unknown whether the course is open to that specific degree-seeking student.

Real-World Questions

Effective environmental ethics training must be nuanced and diverse. While Aldo Leopold’s 1949 book A Sand County Almanac (10) introduced generations of scientists to ecological stewardship and the moral responsibility to maintain and nurture ecosystems, training in environmental ethics often stops there. Since Leopold, however, the field has expanded considerably. Environmental ethics and the related subfields of conservation ethics—which addresses the ethics of biodiversity and biomass preservation—and environmental justice—which addresses the unequal human impacts of environmental crises—are now robust fields of applied philosophy that help us understand and evaluate the moral relationships between humans and the natural world.

Contemporary environmental ethics encompasses questions of biodiversity conservation, human rights, animal welfare, intergenerational equity, and the ethics of an increasingly human-altered planet (11). This reflects the complexity of human–environment relationships and the need for practical frameworks to make decisions in the real world.

Training environmental scientists in ethics is therefore not about a single “correct” set of values, nor merely adjudicating between competing interests. Rather, it requires students to understand and grapple with ethical pluralism and must equip them with tools to navigate decisions when people offer different—and sometimes conflicting—worldviews, ways of knowing, and moral frameworks.

Environmental ethics education must also move beyond the boundaries of traditional Western philosophy, which still dominates much of the field, to incorporate ethical systems from across the globe. Texts such as Braiding Sweetgrass (12) and Country and the Gift (13) can help students reconceptualize humanity’s relationship with nature and offer alternative frameworks for environmental responsibility. Integrating diverse traditions, including Western, Eastern, Indigenous, African, and South American perspectives, can be challenging (14). But such exposure is necessary to understand the many ways in which people value and interact with nature.

This is particularly important when preparing students to address global problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss, where local values and priorities are central to successful solutions. Take, for example, the Whanganui River Agreement in Aotearoa (New Zealand), which codifies Māori recognition of nature as an entity with its own rights and has reshaped environmental governance in the region (15). Similarly, cultural burning practices in California emerge from long-standing relationships between Native American tribes and local ecosystems, grounded not only in fire management, but also in values of reciprocity, sovereignty, and historical continuity (16). Failure to understand these ethical systems in situ and how they differ from Western stewardship risks imposing external value systems on communities with their own conservation priorities.

Ethics Education

Some environmental science departments have integrated ethics into introductory courses, often through a single lecture or unit. While this approach can introduce students to key ethical concepts, we believe it is insufficient. A single lecture risks presenting ethics as peripheral rather than foundational to environmental practice and leaves little opportunity for students to recognize how values shape the field or appreciate conflicts and trade-offs that characterize real-world environmental decisions. Students may leave familiar with a range of perspectives but without the tools to critically evaluate them (17) or the repeated practice needed to apply ethical reasoning throughout their professional lives. Sustained exposure also helps students recognize that ethics is not simply a matter of opinion or individual values, but a rigorous discipline with its own theories, methods of argument, and intellectual traditions.

To fully prepare the next generation of environmental scientists, engineers, and policymakers, ethics must be treated as a core competency rather than a peripheral concern.

There are many better ways in which departments and schools can meaningfully integrate environmental ethics into environmental science curricula (8). One is required environmental ethics courses, similar to the bioethics classes often mandatory for medical students (18). Dedicated courses provide students with foundations in philosophy, logic, and ethical reasoning, while allowing sustained engagement with complex topics, case studies, and ethical traditions difficult to address in broader science courses. Such reforms are also among the easiest, as many institutions already possess relevant expertise within philosophy or environmental studies departments, allowing classes to be cross-listed and required by environmental programs.

Co-taught courses that bring together scientists and ethicists offer another valuable model, which demonstrates how these fields complement and inform one another. The Yale School of the Environment has offered master’s courses that explicitly tie together environmental science and ethics. Stanford has historically run a jointly taught environmental technology ethics class for undergraduates that draws on experts from both domains. The complexity of contemporary environmental challenges means that ethical reasoning should be treated as a core professional competency rather than an elective supplement to scientific training.

When degree programs include a shared core curriculum, more opportunities open for extended engagement with ethical thinking. An embedded ethics model—in which ethical considerations and analytical tools are woven through science courses—exposes students to a wide range of discipline-specific issues and perspectives. Although still uncommon in environmental science, this model has proven effective in computer science ethics education and is increasingly used by universities (19), with significant benefits for student engagement both within and beyond the classroom (19, 20). Embedded ethics curricula also allow students to encounter ethical reasoning across multiple courses and instructors, exposing them to different perspectives, traditions, and worldviews. The rapid adoption of embedded ethics models in computer science departments at Harvard, Northeastern, and the University of California San Diego demonstrates both the feasibility and the capacity to build strong interdisciplinary relationships, benefiting research as well as education.

At a more structural level, hiring environmental ethicists within environmental and sustainability departments can expand ethics education. Stanford University, through a collaboration with the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, has integrated environmental ethics researchers into the Stanford Doerr School for Sustainability, who co-teach and collaborate with scientists and students. New York University’s Environmental Studies Program has built an interdisciplinary faculty that includes ethicists, humanists, social scientists, and natural scientists, offering students a more holistic understanding of environmental crises. This approach also reinforces that applied ethics is itself a professional field with specialized expertise, helping students recognize when ethical consultation is needed, just as they would seek technical expertise from another scientist when confronting unfamiliar challenges (18).

Regardless of the specific approach, environmental ethics training should, at a minimum: 1) equip students to critically examine their own values and those embedded in environmental practice; 2) foster the capacity to engage respectfully with diverse perspectives, value systems, and ways of knowing; and 3) provide sustained engagement with a broad range of environmental philosophies. Any of the approaches described above can achieve these goals, provided that ethics education is integrated consistently and thoughtfully across curricula.

We recognize that challenges exist, including limited syllabus space, constrained curriculum, and the need for coordination among faculty. Yet, these barriers are not insurmountable. Viable approaches can be adapted to different institutions.

Context and Solutions

The positive examples we highlight remain exceptions. Despite repeated calls over the past decade to integrate ethics into environmental curricula (8–10), few major institutions have done so in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, the context in which environmental scientists are trained and employed has changed considerably. Today’s students will enter professions shaped by intersecting crises—including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and resource scarcity—that increasingly require decisions under conditions of uncertainty, urgency, and competing societal values. Environmental scientists are no longer asked only to understand environmental problems; they are increasingly expected to guide solutions. Without formal preparation in ethical reasoning, students may be technically trained, yet ill-equipped for many of the most challenging decisions they will face.

To fully prepare the next generation of environmental scientists, engineers, and policymakers, ethics must be treated as a core competency rather than a peripheral concern. Institutional change is hard, but so is addressing environmental crises. Given the current state of the environment and the climate, preparing students with technical expertise alone is simply no longer sufficient.