Sustainability and Education: To Sink—or to Swim?

SUMMARY In the 1960s, the role of engineering education was clear, whereas in the 1990s there is a search for a new rationale. These changes have been wrought by social concerns for the environment at both local and global levels. This trend will accelerate further, and both the rate of development of the trend and its implications have been underestimated. There is now a hope and expectation that technology, until now a contributor to environmental problems, can in the future play a large part in the reduction of these problems. While professional engineering organizations have addressed the problem at a policy level, implementation is a major difficulty. This is also true in education, despite efforts by some schools of engineering to adapt existing courses in an environmental direction. It is now clear that the changes needed are too fundamental and the rate of change too great to be dealt with adequately by adaptation. Basic questions of philosophy and capacity will have to be addressed by academia, engineering practice and major business.