Educating for sustainability: opportunities in undergraduate engineering
Introduction
In many ways the effectiveness of engineering education is beyond dispute. Engineers have responded to societal needs for transportation, sanitation, health care, communication, energy production, waste management, and pollution control systems. Sustainable development, however, poses an array of problems that go far beyond what is generally found in the textbooks or experiences provided as part of engineers' formal training. The problems to be addressed are more complex, clients are more differentiated and extend beyond the immediate user/client of engineering services, and there is an increasing demand for engineering solutions which respond to a variety of social and political challenges. Business wants a competitive edge both in design and cost solutions; consumers want more convenient, reliable, safe, affordable products; government and society at large want solutions to economic, social and environmental problems and assurance that technological solutions are developed with full understanding of the social, economic and environmental contexts and without negative impacts on these contexts. Tension and conflict exists between the interests and goals of these overlapping constituencies and must be mediated. The intense demands and expectations from business, consumers and government are increasingly focused on the engineering profession.
The demands require that engineers understand and effectively respond to sustainable development challenges. Unfortunately, research [1] reveals that engineers' knowledge, skills and/or practices for sustainable development are deficient or problematic in a number of areas; as a result, engineers' ability to contribute to sustainable development effectively is compromised. Challenges in practice have been discussed elsewhere and will not be considered here explicitly. Rather, this paper considers ways in which sustainability concerns could be given higher priority and better integrated in engineers' preparatory education.
A brief overview of the concept and principles of sustainable development is provided. Goals of engineering education are reviewed and “new” goals attentive to sustainability demands are proposed. Evidence of gaps between the real and ideal provide the impetus for finding ways to better incorporate sustainability concerns into engineers' preparatory education. Options for incorporating sustainability into the curriculum are examined; examples and recommendations for optimizing the success of approaches are offered.
Section snippets
Sustainable development
More than 10 years after popularization of the terms “sustainable development” and “sustainability,” it may seem unnecessary to define them — especially for those who have been working to facilitate movement towards sustainability, and in a journal that aims to “help ensure a sustainable environment.” Nonetheless, it is true that people have slightly different interpretations of sustainable development. In the main, differences exist in the degree to which interpretations tend to emphasize
Goals of engineering education
Safeguarding (and also improving) human health and well-being has long been of paramount importance to the engineering profession. As such, it should not be surprising to find sustainability goals and principles encompassed by engineering codes of practice. Detailed analysis of policy documents, codes of ethics and practice of the Canadian engineering profession reveals that goals and underlying requirements of sustainable development are well-aligned with those encompassed by the engineering
The vision
Sustainability implies a new, broader set of boundary conditions of contemporary decision-making. In particular, it calls for a consideration of expanded time and space horizons and an examination of cross-disciplinary effects during the process of transforming the earth's resources into goods and services that meet human needs and wants [7].
Our knowledge of ecosystems and the interdependence of technology and society is rapidly increasing. Engineers will need a good grasp of global systems and
Curriculum options
As social, technological, economic, and ecological systems have grown more complex, the demand for technological and organizational expertise has increased. In particular, people with a broad interdisciplinary outlook (“specialists of the general”) are being sought out to offer systemic approaches that are capable of dealing with the complexity of the problems and the tasks we face [8].
As previously noted, achieving the ideals of the engineering profession, inclusive of those pertaining to
Conclusion
Students, educators and practicing engineers alike must seek out opportunities to have their assumptions challenged and guard against meek or resigned acceptance of beliefs and practices that can and should be changed. Initiative and leadership are essential components of creating change. We cannot be expected to change the world but we can be expected to try. We can expect the changes we desire will occur gradually; we should not expect that they will occur in the absence of initiative and
References (14)
- Crofton F. Sustaining engineering: rationale and Directions for preparing engineers for sustainable development. SFU,...
- Cortese T. Engineering education for a sustainable future. In: Engineering Education and Training for Sustainable...
- Crofton F, Mitchell C. Role models and environmental education: the good, the bad, and the MIA. In: ASEE 1988...
- Crofton F. Engineering education as if sustainability mattered. Keynote at Waves of Change 10th Australasian Conference...
Mandatory continuing professional development for re-licensing of engineers
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
(1993)Meeting professional development needs in large consulting firms
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
(1993)- et al.
Moving towards sustainability: the new professional imperative
Innovation Journal of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC
(1999)
Cited by (81)
Creating environmentally conscious engineering professionals through attitudinal instruction: A mixed methods study
2021, Journal of Cleaner ProductionCitation Excerpt :Universities need to transform to serve as models of social justice and environmental stewardship, to promote sustainability learning (Leal Filho et al., 2018). Because of its practical nature (Glassey and Haile, 2012), integrating sustainable development into university curricula will train students to deal with issues in a sustainable manner as future professionals (Colombo and Alves, 2017; Crofton, 2000; Glavič, 2006; Peet et al., 2004). After graduation, students will assume positions in companies and government and consulting firms, and they will carry the message of sustainability into their roles and organizations (Roorda, 2010).
Engineering education perspective for sustainable development: A maturity assessment of cross-disciplinary and advanced technical skills in eco-design
2020, Procedia CIRPCitation Excerpt :On the one hand SD education is based on environmental, social and economic knowledges and cross-disciplinary skills such as ethics, systemic thinking, critical thinking and so on (Jon-Erik Dahlin, 2018). On the other hand, engineering education is primarily focused on technical knowledges (Crofton, 2000). Moreover, we have to pay attention that « Instead of adding SD to an unsustainable curriculum, we should rebuild curricula by taking the contribution of a field of expertise to SD as the leading principle for curricula » (Svanström et al., 2012).
Best practices for teaching green invention: Interviews on design, engineering, and business education
2019, Journal of Cleaner ProductionAn analysis of the difficulties associated to sustainability insertion in engineering education: Examples from HEIs in Brazil
2018, Journal of Cleaner ProductionKey characteristics of academics promoting Sustainable Human Development within engineering studies
2018, Journal of Cleaner ProductionCitation Excerpt :Technical faculties and universities are particularly susceptible to barriers to change concerning SD. The main reason is that engineering education is primarily focused on technical aspects and, traditionally, there have not been many opportunities to develop broader knowledge and skills to respond to the complexity of global problems related to SD, as reported by Crofton (2000). Despite the calls for a reform of engineering curricula to integrate SD (Watson et al., 2013), and the need to restructure teaching approaches (Leal Filho and Nesbit, 2016), engineering methods and tools are still characterised by a strong practical orientation and mostly focus on finding and implementing solutions that work with certainty and predictability (Halbe et al., 2015).
COMPETENCES for the DEVELOPMENT of ECODESIGN PRODUCTS
2020, Proceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference