Addressing the Sustainable Engineering Skills Gap through Engineering Curricula

Sustainable Engineering has become a major focus to not only conserve energy and resources but also reduce the production costs of realized products. The concept of Sustainable Manufacturing encourages the manufacturing of products using processes that minimize the overall negative impact through the conservation of energy and resources. One of the challenges in Sustainable Manufacturing is that many currently available processes are not economically sound compared to other traditional processes. However, this dynamic is changing very rapidly. The other significant challenge is the shortage of skilled workers in this area. This pressing need has highlighted the clear Skills Gap in the workforce. This paper reviews Sustainable Engineering outlining the career options and learning objectives that need to be addressed. A case study-based discussion will be provided on how Mechatronics and Renewable Energy curricula could be used as potential options to address the multi-/interdisciplinary skills gap. These curricula could be applied at multiple levels of engineering education, including high school, 2-year programs, and higher education. Thus, they present a broad modular approach that could address several areas of need in the Sustainable Engineering field.