Incorporating Sustainability in Engineering Education: a Review of Current Practices

At the United Nations Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, participating nations agreed to work together to achieve the goal of sustainable development. Twenty years on great progress has been made, but many challenges remain and overcoming them and ensuring a sustainable future will require the knowledge, skills and input of engineering professionals. The skill set those engineers will need has grown dramatically. The American Institute of Mining Metallurgy and Petroleum Engineering is investigating how sustainability is being incorporated into engineering education across disciplines. In this paper we describe the ongoing shift to sustainable engineering and discuss a variety of approaches that universities are currently using to introduce engineering students to sustainability principles and practice.