Integrating the UN Sustainable Development Goals into Engineering Education: Pedagogical Approaches and Challenges

Abstract

Engineering is central to addressing the world’s urgent challenges, from energy and sustainability to access to clean water and safer infrastructure. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a globally accepted blueprint for these, for which the systemic embedding in engineering education is far from uniform. This paper explores pedagogical methods for integrating the SDGs into engineering education and discusses some of the challenges that educators are currently facing. Based on a literature review of worldwide practices, including project-based learning, problem-based learning, and interdisciplinary teamwork strategies for developing the sustainability competence of future engineers, obstacles such as curriculum overload, lack of faculty training, and a limited number of assessment instruments are emphasized. Based on the content taught in their engineering courses, as well as through compulsory climate change education for non-engineers, similar process flows are then considered to determine how they can contribute to addressing the challenges defined in SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action).