Integration of sustainability in regular courses:

experiences in industrial design engineering

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
14, 2006, 932-939
CASPER BOKS, JAN CAREL DIEHL

1. Introduction

1. Introduction
Literature on how to accomplish true integration is quite

limited.
Sustainability is not the main premise on which the course
is built.
This article reports on such experiences:

Delft University of Technologys (DUT)

Industrial Design Engineering (IDE)
Bachelor curriculum.
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1. Introduction
S. design complexity:

issues must be identified

and knowledge known
Designers need to have:
Domain-specific
knowledge (basic
academic and design
problem solving )
General (domainindependent) process
knowledge
Integration is key
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1. Introduction
Barriers for integrating sustainability issues into regular

courses:
As long as it does not affect what students really have
to learn;
But not at the cost of my course;
As long as I do not have to spend time myself to learn
about environmental issues.

2. Background
For the course in IDE
First two years:
Course take courses that address various topics related to
the above-mentioned domain-specific basic and design
knowledge.
Second semester:
Focus is integration of abilities,
integration of sustainability issues into product design.
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Teams of five students,

simulated to operate as
young, innovative design
companies.
Based on a business case
description.

Each stage usually takes

one week
Client, coach, expert
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2. Background
Selected business cases are usually based upon SMEs

with little or no prior experience with sustainability issues.

Coach stimulate student teams:
Remain on the right track
Positive / Negative feed-back
A client typically serves eight teams of five students,
while coaches supervise four teams.
Each course is concluded with students writing an
individual reflection called learning experience
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3. Learning Experiences
Resulting proposals have limited sustainability content.

Students did not know how to, because

little incentive, lack of stress, lack of evidence
Lack of knowledge
The elementary environmental science course was probably too
technical and LCA-oriented, and did not sufficiently address
practical issues in a real life business context.

4. Results re-evaluation
What sustainability is all about was unclear for students.

Pay much more attention to the communication of what

sustainability can be understood to be.

Explicitly address social issues as well.
Distinguish between long-term and short-term goals.
Explicitly asking for sustainable options and the criteria on
which they should be evaluated.
Such criteria would include
short and/or long-term reduction of environmental impact
a number of criteria in a wider sustainability context.
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5. Conclusions
It should be considered a satisfactory result when:
1. Students have identified options for sustainable
product concepts,
2. Students have evaluated them, as well as all other
options for product concepts, also on the basis of
sustainability criteria.
One student reflection:
When you really want to do it right, sustainability should
be the only starting-point in this project.
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