Based on the EESF Discovery Report (2025)
If you had to redesign an engineering programme from scratch to produce graduates ready for the sustainability challenges of the next thirty years, where would you start? Add a module on renewable energy? Require a capstone project on circular economy? Retrain the faculty?
The EESF Discovery Report argues that the answer is none of those, at least not as the starting point. Drawing on extensive literature review and 50 qualitative interviews with HEI leaders, engineering faculty, and industry stakeholders across Europe, the report lays out a deceptively simple framework: sustainability-oriented engineers need three things, in this order, the right mindsets, the right knowledge, and the right skills. Heavily influenced by the Engineering for One Planet initiative from the Lemelson Foundation, the framework places these three elements in concentric relationship rather than isolation.
Why mindsets come first
You can teach someone how to calculate a carbon footprint. You can't teach them to care about the answer. That, in essence, is why the Discovery Report puts mindsets at the core of the framework.
Three mindsets emerged from the research as critical for sustainable engineering practice:
Systems thinking. Engineering solutions don't exist in isolation, they ripple through social, environmental, and economic systems. An electric vehicle reduces tailpipe emissions but raises questions about battery supply chains, grid capacity, and resource extraction. A renewable energy installation reshapes local ecosystems and community economics. Engineers trained to see only the immediate technical problem miss these ripples; engineers trained in systems thinking see them, analyse them, and factor them into design decisions. The report notes that embedding systems thinking is challenging, it requires students to step back from definitive, siloed answers and sit with complexity, but projects that span multiple modules or disciplines can cultivate it.
Multidisciplinarity. Sustainability challenges are inherently multi-dimensional. They involve engineering, yes, but also economics, policy, ethics, ecology, and social dynamics. The report stresses that engineers need to learn to work with and absorb knowledge from adjacent fields. Project-based learning involving students from engineering, business, environmental science, and social sciences creates conditions for this mindset to develop. One French educator quoted in the research emphasised the importance of teaching students to approach problems from multiple dimensions simultaneously, so that the solutions they devise function across domains rather than solving one problem while creating another.
An ethical mindset. Ethics has traditionally been well-embedded in engineering education, and sustainability fits naturally into that tradition. The Discovery Report frames sustainability as, in many ways, a form of ethics, environmental justice, corporate responsibility, fair distribution of resources, and argues that sustainability-related ethical reflection should be woven through engineering programmes, not siloed into a single module.
Knowledge: the content layer
Once the mindsets are in place, students need the substantive knowledge to apply them. The Discovery Report identifies several knowledge areas that should be systematically integrated into engineering curricula:
The foundations of sustainability itself the historical development of sustainability as a concept, the structure and intent of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and how those goals map onto engineering practice. Without this grounding, "sustainability" risks being reduced to a buzzword.
Environmental sustainability knowledge renewable energy systems, energy efficiency, sustainable materials, circular economy principles, life-cycle assessment, and pollution control technologies. This is where engineering students get the environmental literacy they need to analyse the impacts of their own designs.
Economic and business perspectives on sustainability corporate social responsibility, sustainable supply chains, the financial viability of green technologies, and the policy incentives that shape the market for them. Sustainability is not purely a technical problem; it's a business problem, and engineers who don't understand the economics struggle to get their solutions adopted.
Social and ethical dimensions environmental justice, resource equity, the cultural impacts of technology. These topics work best woven into case studies and ethical discussions rather than treated as separate add-on content.
Standards and regulations environmental laws, green building certifications (LEED, BREEAM), management system standards (ISO 14001), and regional frameworks like the EU Green Deal. Industry repeatedly flagged regulatory fluency as a gap in recent graduates; this is where it gets closed.
Skills: the application layer
Knowledge without the ability to apply it is inert. The Discovery Report divides the necessary skills into two categories, echoing how employers actually describe their needs.
Technical sustainability skills are the discipline-specific capabilities needed to implement sustainability in engineering solutions. Life-cycle analysis sits near the top, the ability to assess the environmental impact of materials, processes, and products across their entire life cycle. Sustainable materials selection and design, pollution prevention, waste management applying circular economy principles, and fluency in digital tools like GIS mapping, carbon accounting software, and environmental modelling platforms all feature.
Transversal (non-technical) sustainability skills are the human capabilities that allow engineers to work effectively on sustainability-related projects in real-world contexts. Collaboration across multidisciplinary teams. Problem-solving and critical thinking applied to complex, ambiguous challenges. Leadership and advocacy , taking initiative in sustainability projects, whether in academia, industry, or policy. And a repeated emphasis from both industry and HEI interviewees the ability to communicate sustainability concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Why the order matters
The framework isn't just a checklist. The three layers build on each other. Skills without knowledge produce well-meaning but shallow interventions. Knowledge without the right mindsets produces technically correct but narrowly conceived solutions — an engineer who optimises for carbon emissions without considering social equity, or for cost without considering lifecycle waste. Mindsets without skills produce passionate advocates who can't actually build anything.
This is why the EESF Discovery Report emphasises that embedding sustainability isn't about adding content to existing courses. It's about transforming how engineering is taught , integrating sustainability across every facet of the programme, from course design to grading rubrics to capstone projects.
How to actually embed all three
The Discovery Report highlights approaches that work on all three layers simultaneously:
Project-based learning forces students to apply knowledge, work across disciplines, and grapple with real trade-offs,developing mindsets, knowledge, and skills in parallel.
Experiential learning and industry collaboration, internships, co-ops, and live projects with companies, municipalities, or NGOs , give students hands-on experience applying sustainability principles in professional contexts.
Case studies and policy analysis encourage critical analysis of real-world engineering projects and their sustainability outcomes, both successful and not.
Multidisciplinary learning environments bring together students from engineering, business, environmental science, and the social sciences to collaborate on sustainability problems.
Mentorship and professional development connects students with sustainability professionals through structured programmes that extend learning beyond the classroom.
A framework, not a finish line
The EESF Discovery Report is careful not to present its framework as the final word. The goal isn't to impose a one-size-fits-all model on every engineering programme in Europe, institutional contexts vary, and what works at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid may need adaptation at Atlantic Technological University. The framework is a starting point, an invitation to engineering educators to think systematically about what their graduates need rather than adding sustainability content ad hoc.
What the report makes clear is that piecemeal approaches aren't enough. A module here, a guest lecture there, a capstone topic occasionally — these may improve matters at the margin, but they won't produce the generation of engineers that sustainability challenges demand. That requires sustained, systemic integration of mindsets, knowledge, and skills across the entire curriculum.
The framework gives educators a clear structure for that work. The next step, harder but unavoidable, is doing it.
The full Discovery Report is available at www.eesfproject.eu.