1. INTRODUCTION Historically, the engineering profession has responded to changing environmental, social or economic pressures by adjusting its accustomed approach. David Thom [1] and others [2,3] have surmised the engineering profession is currently under significant pressure to adjust its approach, and that the adjustments required are so fundamental that they are driving a paradigm shift. They predict that this paradigm shift will strongly reorient the engineering profession, from 'development engineering' to 'sustainable development engineering' [1]. The paradigm shift to sustainable engineering has substantial support amongst key stakeholders in the engineering profession. Governmental policy and legislative reform is supporting the paradigm shift [4,5,6] and the industrial operating environment has changed as a result of pressure for increased sustainability. Evidence that industry has responded (or has been compelled to respond) to this pressure can be seen in the increasingly routine use of such sustainability-related tools as: environmental management, risk assessment, hazard analysis, quality assurance, due diligence, environmental and sustainability reporting, and community consultation [7,8]. Australian operators who are leading the shift in terms of corporate reporting include Rio Tinto, Broken Hill Proprietary limited (BHP), Shell and Western Mining Corporation (WMC). WMC has produced an annual environment progress report since 1994/95 and as part of that process is committed to four eco-efficiency targets (CO 2 , SO 2 , water and energy). This commitment and the company's progress have earned plaudits from Environment Australia, the United Nations Environment Program and stockbrokers J B Ware [9]. BHP have published an annual environment and community report since 1999. The 2000 report was based on a triple-bottom-line approach encompassing financial, environmental and social performance appraisal [10]. Engineering professional bodies are also supporting the shift towards sustainability [1,11,12]. The Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust) has published a number of documents that describe the professional Engineer's sustainability obligations (eg. DRAFT National Competency Standard 2000 [13]; What do Engineering Undergraduates need to Know, Think or Feel to Understand Sustainability? A L Carew and C A Mitchell Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Sydney Sydney, Australia The Engineering profession’s key stakeholders (government, industry and professional bodies) are driving a paradigm shift in engineering – from ‘development engineering’ to ‘sustainable development engineering’. In response to this shift, the Institution of Engineers, Australia has updated the accreditation procedure for undergraduate degree courses, and an understanding of sustainability is now a condition of graduation. This represents a new challenge to engineering educators and begs the question: What do engineering undergraduates need to know think or feel to understand sustainability? In this paper we have addressed this question by reviewing the literature on the future of engineering education and/or practice. Our review identified three ethical principles (fairness, responsibility and awareness) and four interdependence principles (systems thinking, uncertainty and complexity, impacts, and limits and elasticity) which were described by numerous authors as being fundamental for an undergraduate student seeking to understanding sustainability. In this paper we provide a full description of each of these principles. We also identified three important points of philosophical tension between some of the fundamental tenants of traditional engineering practice and the requirements of sustainable engineering. These are the tension between the engineering ‘domain of operation’ and sustainability’s requirement for broadening and inclusion; between the requirement for objectivity and recognition of uncertainty, complexity and ‘multiple goalposts’; and between the ethical bases of the business model of engineering professionalism and the social-contract model. Consideration of these points may help to clarify some of the underlying assumptions which could hinder or impoverish the process of integrating sustainability and engineering curricula.