An Analysis of Sustainability within Construction and Civil Engineering Curriculum

Abstract

Sustainability is crucial for minimizing environmental impact, ensuring the responsible use of resources, and creating resilient and socially conscious spaces that contribute to harmonious coexistence between the natural, built, and social environments. Because sustainability principles are embedded across the full life cycle of the built environment, sustainability should be an integral part of construction and civil engineering-based curriculum. This research performed an analysis of construction and civil engineering program curriculum to explore where sustainability is being taught, what types of content have been developed, and how prominent a role it plays across the curriculum. The results showed that although generally acknowledged in program descriptions as a prominent industry practice, many programs do not explicitly acknowledge sustainability within course titles or descriptions. Other institutions generally use it as a coupled descriptor for other key built environment topics, such as materials or infrastructure. Programs that seem to have most effectively incorporated sustainability have made a deliberate effort to emphasize it beyond just trendy terminology. This paper identifies trends in sustainability education and provides examples of how programs explicitly focus on sustainability. The results of this research can help generate ideas for strengthening sustainability education within built environment-based curriculum.