The SDG-BASE™ program is an initiative of Penn State's College of Engineering Sustainability Council and the Law, Policy and Engineering (LPE) initiative to foster action towards advancing the SDGs. It recognizes students' experiences and achievements in sustainability and provides a platform to share these with future employers.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are part of the United Nations 2015-2030 global agenda for achieving poverty reduction and sustainable development for people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships, through 17 goals, 169 targets and 230 indicators measuring progress. Engineersplay an important role developing innovative solutions to address the SDGs, driving societal change. Read more below.
You can be a leader, an agent of change by engaging and working with communities to understand their sustainability challenges and engineering sustainable and socially responsible solutions that can be implemented and adopted with the support, participation, and consent of the community. This approach contributes to a more sustainable, equitable, inclusive, and environmentally just future.
In this page you will find resourcesthat will help guide you towards becoming an empowered, global, sustainability conscious and socially responsible engineer.
Resources
“The problems of the environment and of social and economic equity are interrelated, and their solutions are technological in nature. I believe that engineers and the National Academy of Engineering have a special role to play in this regard.“ – Robert A. Frosch, a member of the National Academy of Engineering
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Best Practices in Engineering|ASCE
Expanding the K-12 Pipeline
Universal Design
Sustainability
Sustainability Approaches in Engineering
Credit: Mark Fedkin
Sustainable engineers recognize that their works are embedded in complex social, environmental, political, and economic systems that require a broader and more integrative approach than has historically been applied.
Credit: Based on concepts from Gagnon, et al., 2008 and Mark Fedkin
Engineering for Sustainable Development Guiding Principles (The Royal Academy of Engineering, UK):
Principle 1. Look beyond your own locality and the immediate future
Principle 2. Innovate and be creative
Principle 3. Seek a balanced solution
Principle 4. Seek engagement from all stakeholders
Principle 5. Make sure you know the needs and wants
Principle 6. Plan and manage effectively
Principle 7. Give sustainability the benefit of any doubt
Principle 8. If polluters must pollute… then they must pay as well
Principle 9. Adopt a holistic, “cradel-to-grave” approach
Principle 10. Do things right, having decided on the right thing to do
Principle 11. Beware cost cutting that masquerades as value engineering
“Society’s pressing-problems such as the Sustainable Development Goals require be examined from an innovative, systemic, comprehensive and transdisciplinary approach, such as the LPE platform, where policy and law inform and are informed by engineering, science, and technology.” –
Sandra Allain, Director Law, Policy, and Engineering at Penn State
The Law, Policy, and Engineering initiative at Penn State is a collaborative effort between the College of Engineering, School of International Affairs, and Penn State Law at University Park. Over 20+ faculty across 5 different colleges at Penn State are LPE affiliates collaborating in interdisciplinary research and teaching emerging topics at the intersection of engineering, science, technology, law, policy, and ethics. LPE and the School of Engineering Design and Innovation are home to the 1 year Master in Engineering, Law, and Policy (MELP) degree, and the Engineering, Law, and Policy graduate minor. LPE also leads Penn State’s participation in the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN). This network strives to develop a pipeline of civic minded technologists, and an ecosystem where technology can be used as a catalyst to foster a better and more equitable society.
Engineering for One Planet (EOP), a global initiative working to equip all engineers across all disciplines with the fundamental skills and principles of environmental and social sustainability
Credit: Engineering for One Planet Framework and ASEE Mini-Grant Program. The EOP initiative seeks to create systemic change by establishing environmentally and socially conscious engineering as a core tenet of the profession. “The framework is intended to be a tool for organizing and modifying existing curricula and experiences to incorporate core and advanced sustainability competencies tied to student learning outcomes. It also aligns with ABET accreditation criteria and the UN Sustainable Development Goals” – Michael Milligan, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of ABET (The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). Catalyzed by The Lemelson Foundation and VentureWell, EOP seeks to ensure all future engineers across all disciplines learn the fundamental skills and principles of social and environmental sustainability.
National Academy of Engineering – Grand Challenges for Engineering
At the request of the US National Science Foundation, the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) convened a diverse committee of engineers and scientists from around the world to identify opportunities that were both achievable and sustainable to help people and the planet thrive. 14 challenges were selected in 2008, among which are those that must be met to ensure the future itself. Learn more here.
Computational Sustainability enriches computer science. Working on sustainability problems, which involve uncertainty, machine learning, optimization, remote sensing, and decision making, enriches computer science by generating compelling new computational challenge problems.
Credit: UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. CEETis a high-level body of engineers and energy system experts helping build the UN Secretary General’s coalition to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. They convened for the first time at the UN climate change conference (COP27) and are an independent advisory council to the United Nations Secretary-General. The CEET has released a statement calling for the rapid deployment of commercially available clean energy technologies, for an accelerated development and deployment of emerging technologies, and for research to develop additional innovative solutions. The statement underlines that these technical solutions must link with policies that support a just and affordable energy transition that leaves no one behind.
Engineering for Sustainable Development: Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goalspublished by UNESCO and the International Centre for Engineering Education in 2021, highlights the crucial role of engineering in achieving each of the 17 SDGs
The report Engineering for Sustainable Development: Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goalsprovides a snapshot of the engineering innovations that are shaping our world, such as big data and AI, which are crucial for addressing the pressing challenges facing humankind and the planet. It analyses the transformation of engineering education and capacity-building at the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that will enable engineers to tackle the challenges ahead. It highlights the global effort needed to address the specific regional disparities, while summarizing the trends of engineering across the different regions of the world. It shows how equal opportunities for all is key to ensuring an inclusive and gender balanced profession that can better respond to the shortage of engineers for implementing the SDGs.
Engineering and the Climate Crisis
The Role of Engineering to Address Climate Change, An NSF Visioning Report of the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance, Report Finalized July 27, 2022. The Thematic Task Force was led by Amy Heintz (co-chair), Battelle and Bruce Logan (co-chair), Pennsylvania State University.
Inventing Green: Tools for Design and Sustainability
Credit: VentureWell. As engineers and designers, what you create will impact the world we live in. To help solve the global issues we face today, it’s more important than ever to invent products and services that help people and the world. With the support of the Lemelson Foundation, VentureWellpartnered with NESsT and Presidio to develop Sustaining Our Planet: A Toolkit for Entrepreneurs. The toolkit includes the 12E Inventing Green Tool, an online tool that simplifies the process of assessing and tracking environmental impact, and the Tools for Design and Sustainability course, developed by Dr. Jeremy Faludi who teaches sustainable design engineering at Delft University of Technology .
The Basics of the Circular Economy
Circular Economy is a systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. It is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. It is paramount to solving global challenges in resource scarcity, sustainable manufacturing, and supply chain uncertainty.
2022 Symposium National Academy of Engineering – Extraordinary Engineering Impacts on Society
Credit: NAE. These are the proceedings of a symposium that took place on August 2022, led by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). It explored how support of fundamental engineering and engineering education research by the NSF has led to positive societal and economic impact, providing better public understanding of the vital role of engineering in government, business, and society.
A consensus study report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels (2020)
Sustainability is emerging as a field that is revolutionizing how humans work and live. Industries, institutions, and organizations across all domains and sectors now intersect with sustainability challenges and opportunities, affecting the knowledge and skills required for the future workforce. Thus, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine were asked to provide expert insights for strengthening the emerging discipline of sustainability in higher education in the United States.
Education for Sustainable Development Goals and Key Competencies for Sustainability – UNESCO
Education for SDGs serves as a guide to readers on how to use Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in achieving the SDGs. It identifies learning objectives, suggests topics and learning activities for each SDG, and describes implementation on different levels, from course design to national strategies. UNESCO highlights 8 key competencies for achieving the SDGs: Systems thinking ; Anticipatory; Normative; Strategic; Collaboration; Critical thinking; Self-awareness; and Integrated problem-solving.
Penn State IEngineer Collection:
“All 17 Goals can be related toengineering and every one requires engineering to achieve its goal.” – Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO
