Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 698701

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Educational Initiatives

Preparing future engineers for challenges of the 21st century: Sustainable engineering
Cliff I. Davidson b, *, Chris T. Hendrickson a, H. Scott Matthews b, Michael W. Bridges c, David T. Allen d, Cynthia F. Murphy d, Braden R. Allenby e, John C. Crittenden f, Sharon Austin g
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA d Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, University of Texas, 10100 Burnet Road, M/C R7100, Austin, TX 78758, USA e Department of Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 875306, Tempe, AZ 85287-5306, USA f School Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 790 Atlantic Dr., Atlanta, GA 30332-0355, USA g Economics, Exposure, and Technology Division, Ofce of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mail Code 7406 M, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460, USA
b c a

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 20 November 2009 Received in revised form 14 December 2009 Accepted 14 December 2009 Available online 6 January 2010 Keywords: Sustainability Education Green engineering Sustainable engineering Workshops

a b s t r a c t
The eld of engineering is changing rapidly as the growing global population puts added demands on the earths resources: engineering decisions must now account for limitations in materials and energy as well as the need to reduce discharges of wastes. This means educators must revise courses and curricula so engineering graduates are prepared for the new challenges as practicing engineers. The Center for Sustainable Engineering has been established to help faculty members accommodate such changes through workshops and new educational materials, including a free access website with peer-reviewed materials. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction As the global population approaches seven billion and standards of living around the world improve, engineers are being pressed to use the limited natural resources of the world to satisfy everincreasing human demands. For example, to avoid damaging the earths life support systems, engineers are tasked with developing methods to produce carbon-neutral forms of energy. They are asked to design buildings that use local materials and have components that can be re-used. They are requested to provide faster and safer mobility with vehicles that do not use fossil fuels.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 412 268 2951; fax: 1 412 268 7813. E-mail addresses: cliff@cmu.edu (C.I. Davidson), cth@cmu.edu (C.T. Hendrickson), hsm@cmu.edu (H.S. Matthews), puentes115@gmail.com (M.W. Bridges), allen@che. utexas.edu (D.T. Allen), cfmurphy@mail.utexas.edu (C.F. Murphy), braden.allenby@ asu.edu (B.R. Allenby), john.crittenden@ce.gatech.edu (J.C. Crittenden), austin. sharon@epa.gov (S. Austin). 0959-6526/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.12.021

Such challenges require new training for engineers around the globe. Unfortunately, few engineering schools have made major updates to their courses and curricula over the past few decades. Boyle [5] notes that making such updates is thwarted by the signicant amount of time needed to make changes, the challenge of inserting new material into already crowded courses and curricula, and the lack of a sense of priority about such changes. Only recently have colleges and universities begun including topics in sustainable engineering (SE) in their course material, such as life cycle assessment, concepts in renewable energy, and methods of waste minimization. Yet the need for change is urgent, as currently graduating engineers may not realize the constraints of limited resources and limited sinks for waste products as they enter the workforce; their more seasoned colleagues used to approaching engineering problems with older metrics are not likely to be of much help. The challenge is all the more onerous when one considers that every year there are roughly 70,000 new engineering graduates with four-year degrees in the U.S. [13],

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produced by over 1500 engineering units and departments at more than 350 colleges and universities [1]. Internationally there are over 100,000 engineering graduates in Europe and 350,000 in China. India has around 215,000 engineering graduates per year, evenly divided between three-year and four-year degrees [6]. All of these engineering students require textbooks and other educational materials, and making changes to those materials to include SE topics is time consuming and expensive [7]. The Center for Sustainable Engineering (CSE) was established in 2005 with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency. As a partnership among Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Arizona State University, the CSE was organized to assist engineering faculty members in updating their courses and curricula to include pressing issues of the 21st century related to sustainable development. This term has been dened in numerous ways, although the denition most often cited is that of the [15]: Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This denition is creatively ambiguous and can mean different things to different people, according to [11], who question what it is we are trying to sustain and what it is we are trying to develop. There is no unique answer, and while that fact has enabled many to use the term to suit their own purposes, the ambiguous denition is an impediment for engineers who must dene terms precisely when working to solve problems facing society [4]. The CSE has engaged in three activities since its founding. First, it has conducted two-day workshops for engineering faculty who wish to augment their courses and curricula with SE material. It has also conducted a benchmark assessment of educational programs, courses, and modules on SE in schools around the country. Finally, it has established an Electronic Library where anyone can submit educational modules for peer review, and anyone can access modules on the web free of charge. 2. Workshops There have been six workshops for engineering faculty organized by the CSE, two in July 2006 at Carnegie Mellon, two in July 2007 at the University of Texas at Austin, and two in July 2009 at Carnegie Mellon. Faculty members from more than 100 colleges and universities have attended these workshops. The statistics of participating faculty at these workshops are shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1, and the agenda of the 2009 workshops is shown in Table 2. In addition to these six regular workshops, a planning workshop was held at Arizona State University in January 2008. The overall goal of the workshops is to enable a dialog among faculty members committed to changing engineering education at their home institutions to incorporate the concepts and tools of sustainable engineering. By sharing class syllabi and comparing notes on what works at different schools, participants can glean numerous ideas to help them develop new educational modules and courses. Furthermore, the workshops have helped catalyze a community of engineering faculty members dedicated to better preparation of young engineers who will face major challenges in the years ahead.
Table 1 Information on Workshop Participants. Year of Workshops 2006 2007 2009
a

The six regular workshops were evaluated using anonymous surveys. Participants rated each workshop session and were asked to provide comments on the most useful aspects of the days workshop sessions and on what sessions could be modied or improved. Participants were also asked to rate the extent to which the workshop facilitated various activities, and then rate how satised they were with the overall quality of the workshop. Results are shown in Table 3. The table shows participants felt on average that the individual sessions ranked between Moderately Valuable and Very Valuable. They felt the extent to which the workshop facilitated the listed activities was between Some and A Great Deal. The written comments from participants were generally quite positive, with a number of constructive suggestions for improvement which were incorporated into later workshops. Other workshops with different approaches have begun appearing at universities around the country. For example, some schools are now organizing internal faculty workshops to discuss ways of introducing sustainability issues into classes campus-wide. Furthermore, different models for workshops are now being discussed, such as conducting them at professional meetings or through webinars. 3. Benchmark assessment The CSE sent out two types of questionnaires to benchmark efforts in SE education and research in the U.S. [2,12]. The rst questionnaire was distributed in 2007 to 1368 engineering department and program heads at 364 schools where there was at least one program accredited by ABET (formerly Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). This questionnaire focused on SE at the program level without addressing individual courses. Roughly 300 responses were received. The second questionnaire was sent in 2008 there were 327 additional faculty members who were identied as SE champions. These individuals were chosen based on their journal publications, attendance at one of the CSE workshops, and recommendations by department and program heads who completed the rst questionnaire. In addition to information at the program level, this questionnaire sought details about the SE content of individual courses as well as textbooks and other materials. A total of 137 valid responses were obtained. Roughly G of the engineering programs in the top 100 institutions rated by U.S. News and World Report had at least one department or program responding to the questionnaires. Some 23% of the respondents reported BS or MS programs related to sustainability, representing 65 departments in 53 institutions. However, about 80% of the respondents reported at least some course content in sustainability. A total of 155 individual courses with SE content were described, covering a wide range of engineering topics. These courses were distributed among civil, environmental, and architectural engineering (64), mechanical, aerospace, and manufacturing engineering (32), chemical, biological, and materials engineering (18), industrial, systems, and sustainable engineering (13), and nally general engineering and other engineering disciplines (28) [3]. Based on the descriptions in the questionnaire responses, the courses were divided into four categories. These include (i) courses with SE concepts and tools as their main focus, (ii) traditional engineering courses with some SE content added, (iii) cross-disciplinary courses between engineering and non-engineering departments, and (iv) courses that include technologies considered enabling for sustainability, e.g., a course on energy that includes a section on carbon capture. Roughly half the courses were of the rst type, and about one-quarter were of the second type. The rest were evenly divided among the third and fourth types [12].

Tenured 28 28 22

Untenured 33 30 33

Male 44 39 35

Female 17 19 20

Minoritya 4 5 5

Black and Hispanic Participants.

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Fig. 1. Colleges and universities represented at the CSE Workshops. Points on the map show the locations of all home institutions of faculty members attending workshops in 2006, 2007, and 2009.

A section of the questionnaire addressed SE-related research projects. The total funding of these projects was about $250 million. The most frequently described projects were in the area of Energy and Power Generation, followed by Industrial Processes, End-ofLife and Waste Management, Building and Construction, Water, Transportation, Humanities (including education), and Climate Change, in that order. The most frequently listed funding source was NSF with an average project size of $300 K over three years [12]. Signicant differences in the extent of sustainable engineering content in courses and curricula among schools are also evident from assessment projects in other parts of the world. For example, a survey by the Natural Edge Project in late 2007 provided data

from 27 out of the 33 Australian universities with engineering programs. The survey focused on energy efciency as an indicator of course content in sustainable engineering, and results showed highly variable amounts of content in this topic across engineering departments and across universities [10]. The Alliance for Global Sustainability conducted a survey in 2008 which included 57 universities in Europe and showed differences in emphasis on sustainable development in engineering programs among the universities, with growing interest in this area [14].

4. Electronic library The CSE Electronic Library has been established to enable the development and use of educational materials on SE free of charge. Submissions are peer-reviewed, and can include class handouts, lecture notes, homework assignments, projects, educational software, and other types of educational materials. The repository of CSE modules is part of the Engineering Pathway website of the University of California at Berkeley. All of the modules can be accessed through the CSE website at http:// www.csengin.org, or through the Engineering Pathway website at http://www.engineeringpathway.com by selecting Advanced

Table 2 Agenda for the 2009 CSE Workshops. Day 1 Introduction and goals: A transition in engineering education Sustainable Engineering: What is it? Panel of workshop participants: How are engineering programs around the U.S. implementing SE? Teaching SE to freshmen and sophomores Breakout groups: Best practices in SE education Reports from breakout groups Learning objectives with examples from SE Breakout groups: topics of interest in SE modules and courses Reports from breakout groups Homework: participants write learning objectives for a module or course with SE content they are teaching or plan to teach Day 2 Presentation of learning objectives from selected participants Life cycle assessment as a tool for SE Breakout groups: tools and metrics in SE Reports from breakout groups NSF funding opportunities in SE CSE Electronic Library Workshop summary Breakout Groups: Energy Manufacturing, Materials, and Design Structures, Construction, and Infrastructure Air and Water Resources

Table 3 Summary of Assessments by Workshop Participants. Year of Workshops 2006 2007 2009 Individual Sessionsa 3.3 0.3 3.3 0.3 3.4 0.2 Extent to which Workshop Facilitated Several Activitiesb 3.3 0.3 3.4 0.3 3.6 0.2 Quality of Workshopc 3.6 0.6 3.5 0.6 3.7 0.5

Explanation of Scores. a Individual Sessions: 4 Very Valuable, 3 Moderately Valuable, 2 Minimally Valuable, 1 Not Valuable. b Facilitated Several Activities: the extent to which the workshop facilitated (i) sharing of ideas, materials, and methods, (ii) developing learning objectives in SE, (iii) networking with others interested in SE, (iv) clarifying understanding of the eld of SE, and (v) expanding teaching in SE with scores 4 A Great Deal, 3 Some, 2 A Little, 1 Not At All. c Quality of Workshop: 4 Very Satised, 3 Moderately Satised, 2 A Little Satised, 1 Not At All Satised.

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Search followed by Higher Education Search, and choosing the Center for Sustainable Engineering collection. Acknowledgments Earlier versions of some of this work were presented at the 2009 American Society of Engineering Education conference [8] and the Indo-US Workshop on Designing Sustainable Products, Services, and Manufacturing Systems [9]. The Center for Sustainable Engineering is funded by NSF Grant DUE-0442618, and by EPA Grant Agreement X3-83235101. Although work in the Center has been funded in part by the EPA, this paper has not been subjected to the Agencys peer and policy review and therefore does not necessarily reect the views of the agency, and no ofcial endorsement should be inferred. The logistics of the workshops were coordinated by Nichole Dwyer, Barbara Bugosh, Andrea Rooney, and Gloria Dadowski. The preparation of this paper was facilitated by Mireille Mobley. References
[1] ABET, Inc, http://www.abet.org; 2009 [accessed November]. [2] Allen DT, Allenby BR, Bridges MW, Crittenden JC, Davidson CI, Hendrickson CT, et al. Benchmarking sustainable engineering education, EPA Report X383235101-0, http://www.csengin.org/benchmark.htm; December 31, 2008 [accessed November 2009]. [3] Allen DT, Murphy CF, Allenby BR, Davidson CI. Incorporating sustainability into chemical engineering education. Chemical Engineering Progress 2009;105: 4753. [4] Allenby BR, Allen DT, Davidson CI. Sustainable engineering: from myth to mechanism. Environmental Quality Management 2007;17:1726. [5] Boyle C. Education, sustainability, and cleaner production. Journal of Cleaner Production 1999;7:837. [6] Christian Science Monitor. Does the U.S. face an engineering gap? by Mark Clayton, http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1220/p01s01-ussc.html; December 20, 2005 [accessed June 2009]. [7] Davidson CI, Hendrickson CT, Matthews HS, Bridges MW, Allenby BR, Crittenden JC, et al. Adding sustainability to the engineers toolbox: a challenge for engineering educators. Environmental Science and Technology 2007;41:484750. [8] Davidson CI, Hendrickson CT, Matthews HS, Bridges MW, Allen DT, Murphy CF, et al. June 1417, 2009. Center for sustainable engineering: workshops and the electronic library, American Society of Engineering Education, Annual Meeting, Austin, TX. [9] Davidson CI, Hendrickson CT, Matthews HS, Bridges MW, Allen DT, Murphy CF, et al. Preparing the next generation of design engineers: the emerging discipline of sustainable engineering. Bangalore, India: Indo-US Workshop on Designing Sustainable Products, Services, and Manufacturing Systems; August 1820, 2009. [10] Desha CJ, Hargroves K. Surveying the state of higher education in energy efciency in Australian engineering curriculum. Journal of Cleaner Production 2010;18(7):6528. [11] Kates RW, Parris TM, Leiserowitz AA. What is sustainable development? Goals, indicators, values, and practice. Environment 2005;47:921. [12] Murphy CF, Allen DT, Allenby BR, Crittenden JC, Davidson CI, Hendrickson CT, et al. Sustainability in engineering education and research at U.S. universities. Environmental Science and Technology 2009;43:555864. [13] National Science Board. Science and engineering indicators 2008. Figure 214, <http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/> [accessed November 2009].

[14] The Alliance for Global Sustainability. The observatory: status of engineering education for sustainable development in European higher education. Spain: EESD-observatory. Technical University of Catalonia; 2008. [15] World Commission on Environment and Development. Our common future. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press; 1987. p. 8.

Cliff Davidson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Engineering and Public Policy, at Carnegie Mellon. He is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Engineering and former President of the American Association for Aerosol Research. He has several decades of experience conducting air quality measurement and modeling research at CMU, and has developed educational materials in Green Engineering.

Chris Hendrickson is the Duquesne Light Company Professor of Engineering, former head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Co-Director of the Green Design Institute. He has several decades of experience conducting research at CMU in life cycle assessment, construction management, infrastructure, and benetcost analysis.

Scott Matthews is Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon. He is also Director of Research for the Green Design Institute at CMU, and the Co-Director of the Green Practices program at CMU. He has conducted research in life cycle assessment, material ow analysis, environmental implications of e-commerce, and infrastructure sensing, among other topics.

Michael Bridges is a former staff member at the University Center for Social and Urban Research at the University of Pittsburgh, and a former staff member of the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon.

David Allen is the Melvin H. Gertz Regents Chair in Chemical Engineering and the Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. He has conducted research in air quality for several decades and was a lead investigator in the Texas Air Quality Study, one of the largest air pollution studies conducted to-date. He has also spearheaded efforts in writing Green Engineering educational materials.

Cynthia Murphy is a Research Associate at the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. She has conducted research there for many years on ways to promote electronics recycling and methods to improve emission inventories for air quality models. Previously, she spent 16 years in the electronics industry and two years in the mining industry.

Braden Allenby is the Lincoln Professor at Arizona State University, and has appointments in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and in Law, at ASU. Until 2004, he was the Environment, Health, and Safety Vice President for AT&T. He had previously served as Director for Energy and Environmental Systems at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

John Crittenden is the Hightower Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests are in pollution prevention, physical-chemical treatment processes in air and waste water, and modeling of xed-bed reactors and absorbers. Dr. Crittenden is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Sharon Austin is a staff member with the Chemical Engineering Branch at the Ofce of Pollution Prevention and Toxics at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She has led several efforts in development of Green Engineering educational material.