Abstract
It is vital that subjects such as the circular economy, sustainable design, green computing or environmental engineering be included in the engineering curriculum. Education for sustainable development will enable engineers to develop sustainable products and provide sustainable services, thereby leading to a beneficial result for society and making an indispensable contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals achievement. As the last stage for students in academia, Degree Theses (Bachelor’s and Master’s) provide a good tool for reviewing the sustainability competencies developed during the degree, as well as being an opportunity for applying these competencies in a holistic way. In their Degree Theses, students should be able to demonstrate that they are aware of the need to introduce and assess sustainability in their future engineering projects. This paper presents a guide aimed at helping engineering students to design and develop sustainable projects, and analyzes the first results of its use in two schools of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya—BarcelonaTech. The proposal is based on a tool referred to as “the Sustainability Matrix”, in which cells contain questions that engineering students should take into account when undertaking their Degree Theses. The questions are related to the project development, the project exploitation and the possible risks involved, three aspects in accordance with the sustainability dimensions (economic, environmental and social). The Sustainability Matrix helps students to develop sustainable projects when they graduate, and teachers to assess how sustainability is incorporated across the curriculum in the subjects they teach and in the students’ Degree Theses.
Highlights
The sustainability competency is closely related to the sustainable development concept
It analyzes the relationship between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations and the questions proposed in the Sustainability Matrix
We have analyzed the relationship between the learning objectives proposed by UNESCO and the questions proposed in the Sustainability Matrix
Summary
The sustainability competency is closely related to the sustainable development concept. The Brundtland Commission [1] defines sustainable development as “the ability to satisfy today’s needs without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs, which is a matter of intergenerational justice.”. Both the Brundtland Commission and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations [2] define social equality, environmental protection and economic growth as the pillars on which sustainable development is based. In order to achieve the “intergenerational justice” indicated by the Brundtland Commission, these pillars must be introduced at all study levels, in higher education. These goals must be developed by both public agencies and private companies, which are obliged to include sustainable development in their daily work
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