Environmental sustainability education: towards a minimum service level agreement for delivery to engineering students

Abstract

The intention of this paper is to equip future engineers with essential background knowledge in environmental sustainability. This will hopefully enable and motive future engineers to become more proactive in solving environmental sustainability problems. A strong requirement now exists to strengthen sustainability engineering curricula, as delivery upon this newly emerged topic is probably less consistent than in other more established areas of engineering. This review/position paper constitutes a condensation of the most pertinent concepts, but for purposes of brevity, only contains a skeleton (gist meaning) behind these concepts. The suggested checklist is merely that, and for reasons of space, is not intended to encompass a fully referenced and rigorous definition of each topic. The checklist is not meant to cover all environmental engineering topics. Importantly, the teaching philosophy behind the purely factual material alluded to, is to allow students (and staff) to formulate their own opinions and beliefs regarding specific environmental sustainability issues. This list as presented is suggested as a minimum for delivery on environmental sustainability related courses. It is hoped that this paper will stimulate discussion across universities, government, professional bodies and industry, and thereby enhance quality and uniformity in the delivery of engineering education in this important new area. It is important to note that statements and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone, and certainly do not apply in particular to any University in Australia, or the world.