Ever deeper and wider: incorporating sustainability into a practitioner oriented engineering curriculum P. Jeffrey, T. Stephenson and C. Temple School of Water Sciences, Cranfield University, Cranfield, MK43 0AL, UK (E-mail: p.j.jeffrey@cranfield.ac.uk; t.stephenson@cranfield.ac.uk; c.temple@cranfield.ac.uk) Abstract Whilst valuable debates about how best to plan, promote, and evaluate sustainable futures for our communities are conducted by governments and NGOs at global gatherings, there is an equal, and possibly more pressing, need to inspire and equip engineering graduates with the means to design and implement the required solutions. However, incorporation of sustainability as a subject into existing syllabi is problematic, primarily because of the need for students to acquire both holistic and context specific skills. This contribution first considers the reasons why we should be concerned with the integration of sustainability concepts into graduate and post-graduate curricula. We then go on to discuss the significance of cross- disciplinary thinking and skills as a key element of sustainability relevant knowledge. Finally, we report the design and deployment, within a water engineering degree course, of a post-graduate module in “Process design for sustainability”. The implications of our experiences for the theory and practice of engineering education are examined and suggestions made concerning best practice. Keywords Cross-disciplinary working; engineering education; sustainability Introduction: drivers for new thinking about sustainability The global debate surrounding sustainability in general and sustainable development in particular has been strongly influenced by concerns about the environment. However, routes to sustainable development are not achievable through consideration of environ- mental issues alone; for two often overlooked reasons. Firstly, the connectedness of our world and the increasing rate at which such connectedness is global in scale, compels us to consider the multifarious relationships between environment, society, economy, tech- nology, and knowledge. Secondly, whilst it would be unrealistic to suggest that current environmental problems are irrelevant with regard to sustainable water management, envi- ronmental degradation is clearly undesirable in terms of ensuring access to natural resources in the future. However, it would be equally nonsensical to propose that solving the current problem set will assure sustainability for all time. New problems and threats will emerge, variations of previously addressed problems will arise, and today’s problems will evolve new dimensions. The specifics of tomorrow’s challenges are thereby both unknown and largely unknowable. It is for these reasons (the inherent and unavoidable uncertainty of the future) that there is a need to seek out knowledge concerning sustainability that is more generic in nature i.e. relevant across all temporal and spatial scales. As “we cannot . . . guarantee the persistence of any particular system in perpetuity” we are led to a view of sustainability as a “norma- tive ethical principle” which has “no single version” and is “a process, not a state.” (Robinson et al., 1990). The implementation of sustainability will therefore be local and relative rather than global and absolute. In particular, if we are to instil an understanding of sustainability and prepare people for decision making which is sensitive to sustainability issues, we need to expand this narrow view to address what has been described as the “triple bottom line” (Elkington, 1997) or three pillars of environmental, economic, and social sus- tainability. Water industry professionals need to be both aware of the “sustainability Water Science and Technology Vol 49 No 8 pp 43–48 © IWA Publishing 2004 43 Downloaded from http://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/49/8/43/420999/43.pdf by guest on 25 March 2021