This paper presents a study where sustainable development indicators (SDIs) for sludge handling and wastewater treatment systems were constructed in co-operation with a large Swedish water company. Results from a life cycle assessment, a risk assessment, an economic assessment and an uncertainty assessment were used as inputs for ranking technical options of sludge handling by use of multi-criteria analysis (MCA). The MCA included assessment of the different technical options, valuation of different, and often conflicting, aspects of sustainability and weighting of various criteria. On basis of the preferences expressed in the MCA, a number of SDIs and, when possible, targets for sustainable development, were formulated. The resulting SDIs reflected economic, environmental, technical and social aspects of sustainable development of sludge handling systems. Where possible, the coverage of the indicators was extended to the entire wastewater system.

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to report on methods developed, within a three-year Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) project at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, to achieve a higher degree of embedding of ESD in engineering programmes. The major emphasis is on methods used, results achieved and lessons learned from the work. Design/methodology/approach -The basic idea that methods and activities were built on was that the only way to achieve long-term changes is to increase the motivation and capacity of lecturers and program directors to perform the required changes. Findings -Activities that were developed and tested focused on coaching discussions and on workshops for teachers, gathering teachers from one programme at a time. These activities aimed at starting learning processes in individuals. Special care was taken into keeping the feeling of responsibility and initiative in the faculty members within the programmes. A special "resource group" of experienced ESD teachers was available as support for programme directors and lecturers. Originality/value -The methods reported on are further developments of a method that has been used in Delft University of Technology (the Individual Interaction Method) in the Netherlands. The experiences from Chalmers are discussed in such a way that they provide useful insights for others aiming at similar changes at university. IntroductionToday, there are more and more efforts to include education for sustainable development (ESD) in engineering education. Many projects relate to the development of learning objectives or strategies for curriculum or course development for inclusion of ESD (Knutson Wedel et al., 2005;Svanström et al., 2008;Segalàs et al., 2009;Hargroves and Desha, 2010). A frequently recurring challenge is to find an effective process of integration of sustainable development (SD) in the curriculum. Such a process often involves a change of attitudes. SD might for example have been perceived as something slightly off the core subject by tradition. New traditions and frameworks therefore need to be built and implemented.At Chalmers University of Technology (Chalmers), a reform project ...