Engineering education is critical for sustainability, given the key role that engineers have in shaping the development of our society. Yet, engineering studies have traditionally not been driven by sustainability-related knowledge and skills, but focused more on general computational skills and technical problem-solving. This has also been the case in our case study, which focuses on recent water and environmental engineering graduates in Finland. We studied the role that sustainable development has had in their education and early career through an extensive questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The analysis was done in two ways: indirectly by comparing how well the key working life knowledge and skills recognized by the respondents correspond with sustainability-related skills, and directly by studying the graduates’ views towards the sustainable development and their possibilities to advance it in their work. The results show that although sustainability was not at the core of respondents’ studies, their key competencies correspond well with sustainability-related working life skills. The respondents also see that sustainable development has a central role in water and environmental engineering, although it is typically more visible at a strategic rather than a practical level. However, the results also indicate that several early-career engineers have deficient knowledge of sustainable development, and are therefore lacking the ability to fully connect the principles of sustainable development into their own expertise. Overall, the findings suggest that water and environmental engineers with their wide set of competencies have the potential to take on a larger role in building a more sustainable society. To ensure this, engineering education should emphasize the connection between the field and sustainable development and clearly link engineers’ core competencies with the skills required to promote sustainability.
An ever-growing number of scholars are developing and applying competency frameworks in the context of sustainability education. Despite the strong interest, most of the research has ignored the varying meanings of competency, which can be interpreted as a performed ability, but also as personality development. UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) recently suggested self-awareness to be a central sustainability competency. However, the sustainability competency discourse is lacking a thorough analysis of how and if personality development related dispositions can be considered as competencies, how can they be taught in higher education, and how can the potentially transformative experiences resulting from such teaching be considered. This article aims at a deep understanding of the concept of self-awareness and its interpretations. We have reviewed the roots and analyzed the current interpretations of self-awareness in sustainability competency research and explored how the competency frameworks connect to transformative learning. In addition, we give tangible examples from art based and creative practices of design education, in which we have examined how self-awareness is defined and how it connects to transformative learning. The interpretations of self-awareness addressed two perspectives: awareness of oneself and awareness of one’s relation to others and a wider society. Based on our research, becoming self-aware is a process that nourishes transformative learning. We additionally understand self-awareness as a process of internal growth instead of only a performable ability. This needs to be considered when developing the sustainability competency frameworks and their applications in education.
Circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended. Unlike the traditional linear economic model based on a 'take-make-consume-throw away' pattern, a circular economy is based on the notion that all wastes can be considered as valuable resources in an almost closed loop, where products and the materials they contain are highly valued. In practice, it implies reducing waste to a minimum. Examination of the current knowledge and performance on resource efficiency and circular economy of industrial enterprises in companies in the Baltic Sea Region-in Finland, Sweden, Latvia and St. Petersburg Region, Russia -was in focus in the two parallel twinning international projects «ERREC 2.0» (Environmental Responsibility and ITMO University (Russia). The main overall objective of the projects was to increase the level of education among young and elderly people to guarantee skilled work force with a relevant level of awareness in the area of resource efficiency leading to a circular economy. The specific objectives of the projects included there cognition of new technologies, innovations and joint activity models to support skills development in circular economy and resource efficiency in participating regions between companies and higher education institutions (HEIs).Cooperation with businesses will provide the HEIs in the Baltic Sea Region with resource efficiency related research topics corresponding to their industry. In the future projects, these topics will be worked on using different methods to bring together students, companies and university staff to investigate companies' activities and possibilities to make them more resource and environmentally efficient and also economically more competitive. To evaluate the current knowledge and performance on resource efficiency and circular economy, a survey was distributed to51companies in the project partner countries. In addition, the survey aimed to find out the companies' experiences and willingness to engage in university-industry collaboration. In the survey, about 78% of the respondents chose sustainability ingeneral (including concepts such as social/environmental/economic sustainability, corporate social responsibility, fair trade etc.) as the most important concepts leading to circular economy. These were followed by the resource efficiency Научный журнал НИУ ИТМО. Серия Экономика и экологический менеджмент № 4, 2018 126 concept: (waste minimization, energy efficiency, material efficiency etc.) with 76% of the responses. The results will promote the sharing of knowledge between universities and companies, offer valuable information on the competences needed in working life, and may lead to new cooperation between Baltic, Nordic and Russian companies and universities.Сакари Аутио Sakari.Autio@lamk.fi Университет прикладных наук Лахти 15140, Финляндия, Лахти, ул. Ниеменкату 7...
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