The system of environmental education is widely developed in the Russian Federation. The paper presents the results of the analysis of the introduction of environmental aspects in the system of higher education in technical universities, the analysis of methods and solutions for the creation of curricula aimed at studying and overcoming environmental problems based on the experience of several decades of environmental training of specialists in technical universities. Methods of theoretical analysis, methods of observation, expert evaluation, method of systematisation of the obtained results were used; method of description was used to summarise the obtained information; method of justification, method of survey and others. Multilevel approach in the system of environmental education is presented. Polytechnic University for more than 25 years has been implementing educational programmes for training specialists in the field of environmental safety, taking into account the current problems of global ecology and sustainable development. The features of educational programmes and their focus on the formation of the necessary competencies for environmental safety, features of some disciplines, are shown. This approach makes it possible to train a new generation of specialists ready to make environmentally responsible technical decisions. The results of this study show the value of an integrated system approach in environmental education.