Sustainable Development, Engineering Education and Iranian Academe: Strategies and Related Issues

In the last three decades, the environmental movement toward sustainability in industrialized countries has motivated researchers and industry coalitions to seek ways to minimize the negative environmental impacts of the built environment and find ways to build green. Developing countries on the other hand have concentrated their efforts in building the much needed infrastructure for improving the living conditions of their people and have not given sustainability the attention it deserves. Education and training of engineers are essential components of sustainable development. Engineers must be taught to identify potential risks and impacts of their work on the environment and critically examine the environmental impacts of their decisions. This necessitates an environmentally knowledgeable faculty to generate the required knowledge through research and develop the skills students need to further sustainability in the future practices. This paper reviews the fundamental concepts of sustainability that should be integrated with the engineering education in Iran. Several strategies used in industrialized countries to integrate principles of sustainable development in engineering education are discussed to provide an overview that can be used for successful revision of the engineering education in Iran.