Strategic Decarbonisation

Become an expert in decarbonisation strategy

The Strategic Decarbonisation major equips you to design, evaluate, and implement advanced emission-reduction strategies across diverse industries and jurisdictions. You'll integrate climate science, carbon management, market mechanisms, and emerging decarbonisation technologies, preparing you to lead large-scale mitigation initiatives aligned with global and national net-zero goals.

You'll gain practical expertise in carbon markets and offsets and in the decarbonisation of heavy industry, including the application of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) within broader industrial transition pathways. You'll learn to develop marginal abatement cost curves, assess carbon offset integrity, and integrate policy, technological, and economic levers into strategic decarbonisation roadmaps.

As one of the two majors you'll complete in the Master of Decarbonisation, Energy and Sustainability Management, Strategic Decarbonisation can be paired with Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Cities and Infrastructure, or Corporate Sustainability Management, letting you build a cross-disciplinary skill set suited to your career goals.

3 reasons to study strategic decarbonisation at Murdoch University

• Build the skills to lead net-zero strategy, learning to design decarbonisation roadmaps, assess carbon offset integrity, and apply CCUS within real industrial transition pathways.
• Pair Strategic Decarbonisation with a second major to develop the complementary, cross-disciplinary expertise today's fast-evolving workplace demands.
• #1 in Australia for overall educational experience, skills development, teaching quality and learner engagement in Engineering and Technology. Good Universities Guide 2026* 

What you’ll learn 

• Pinpoint where emissions come from and weigh up decarbonisation strategies across carbon markets, offsets, and industry-wide mitigation.
• Compare CCUS technologies on readiness, cost, and policy fit.
• Develop a decarbonisation roadmap for a heavy-industry sector, using marginal abatement cost curves and enabling infrastructure.
• Assess whether carbon offsets genuinely stack up, analysing additionality, permanence, leakage, and baselines.
• Design scalable emission-reduction solutions and pitch them in a clear policy brief or executive presentation.

Your future career

This major prepares you to lead emission-reduction strategy across government, industry, and consultancy, in roles spanning government agencies, carbon-market regulators, industrial and energy sectors, sustainability consultancies, and international organisations driving the low-carbon transition. Roles could include:

• Decarbonisation program manager
• Carbon market analyst
• Net Zero strategy advisor
• Industrial sustainability consultant
• Climate and policy analyst

To study this major, apply for the Master of Decarbonisation, Energy and Sustainability Management or the Master of Decarbonisation, Energy and Sustainability Management (Advanced).

For more details about our Strategic Decarbonisation major, download our information pack.