The Catch-22 of Engineering Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is a fundamentally different challenge for the engineering profession, and engineers must evolve to meet this challenge. Unfortunately, the profession is caught in a number of difficult Catch-22 situations, which constrain the ability of engineers to tackle sustainability issues in their work. These situations can be described as: the problem of existing paradigms of development; the problem of scope; the problem of framing versus solving; the problem of context; and the problem of conventional education. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of these problems and suggests what could be done to overcome them. Engineers must understand the concept of sustainability and its implications, as well as the urgency to start making the necessary changes now. Engineers must also adopt new ways of thinking and become leaders of change. To do this, they must be given the tools they need to see and address the barriers to their efforts.