In January, The Lemelson Foundation and VentureWell officially launched the Engineering for One Planet initiative (EOP) intended to equip every graduating engineer —regardless of subdiscipline, institution, identity or geography— with the learning outcomes needed to excel as an engineer operating within our planet’s constraints. More than 200 stakeholders from academia, industry, policy and non-profit organizations, have contributed to shaping the initiative and the development of the Engineering for One Planet Framework to guide curricular changes.
The EOP framework outlines the cross-cutting knowledge, awareness and competencies needed to design, build, manage and implement engineering solutions that minimize negative impacts, strive for net neutral outcomes, and, ideally, are restorative. Designed for flexible adoption, the Framework comprises a set of fundamental learning outcomes to equip graduating engineers with the fundamental tenets of environmental sustainability.
Five universities have received pilot grants to integrate the Framework into diverse engineering programs and share their learnings and resources with the field: Arizona State University, Oregon State University, University of Central Florida, University of Maryland and Villanova University.
Anyone passionate about integrating environmental sustainability in engineering education is invited to join EOP’s growing global network.
To learn more and subscribe to updates, go to engineeringforoneplanet.org.