Sustainability: necessity for a prosperous society

Purpose To present the challenge of sustainable development, the way in which technology can address that challenge and the task of engineering education to train engineers for it. Design/methodology/approach The paper describes briefly the history of the environmental and sustainability discourse in The Netherlands, as a densely populated country. It argues that technology should play a major role in SD, but that technological innovation is not enough. Technological systems renewal is a transdisciplinary activity involving relevant stakeholders and disciplines. “Needs” is the basic starting‐point to innovate new systems of provision. The paper reviews relevant literature regarding future orientation of technology development. Based on it, goals for training of engineers are developed. Findings The engineer has to meet a threefold challenge: providing new creative approaches on the one hand, and setting up and executing R&D programs that produce results, on the other; cooperating with other disciplines and lay stakeholders, on the one hand, and guarding disciplinary quality, on the other; bridging moralism and strategic pragmatism. Research limitations/implications The paper is an introduction, i.e. it sketches the issues without dealing with them in detail. Practical implications The paper draws in broad lines a road‐map for the future of engineering education and sustainable development. The paper is a useful source for those engineering institutions that are formulating a strategy to introduce sustainable development. Originality/value The paper goes beyond environmental engineering, not by just adding social and economic issues, but by developing an integrated framework for academic training of engineers.