Issues of sustainability and pollution prevention in environmental engineering education

Abstract

This paper discusses the concepts of sustainability and pollution prevention and their roles in environmental science and engineering education. It is argued that environmental engineering science and education must be re-oriented to focus primarily on pollution prevention technologies as a mechanism for attaining the goal of sustainability. While it is acknowledged that traditional pollution control will remain as an integral part of environmental science and engineering education, the paradigm shift (in favor of pollution prevention) must be completed in order for humanity to realize, albeit remotely, the goal of sustainability. The paper presents two case studies; at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA) and at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain) where efforts are being made to re-orient environmental engineering education to promote the concept of sustainability as the primary goal of environmental management.