2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A typical IE course in sustainability engineering introduces students to engineering design, manufacturing, supply, and systems aspects while highlighting global sustainability, energy management, and life cycle analysis. Although such courses provide students with the knowledge required to assess the environmental impacts of existing products, services, and systems, they suffer from a few common weaknesses: (1) they focus more on analysis, and much less on front-end design of environmentally sound products; (2) in many IE curricula, these are only elective courses; and (3) students tend to treat sustainability courses as a one-off class, and often lack a vision and clear next steps toward a career path in designing and innovating around sustainable products.
To address the challenges above, and to improve the skills and competency of engineering students, we have introduced in our sustainability engineering course two additional sets of training – one on innovation and product design principles, practices, and methods, and one on entrepreneurial mindset. These additional training sets aim to: (1) encourage constant curiosity among students about our changing world and anticipate the challenges of currently accepted solutions; (2) make connections from many resources to intersect ideas; and (3) develop product designs that create environmental, economic, and social value. We also present insights into ISE curriculum changes to strengthen these sustainability training elements. This effort would create entrepreneurs with engineering training who can innovate and design sustainable products and systems for the future. We are presently implementing this effort in our sustainability course, and will share results from ongoing student projects and student surveys about their attitudes, skills, confidence, and viability for sustainability engineering as a career path.