Abstract
According to the underlying premise of this study, sustainability is above all a consequence of adequate human scales of value. The enormous responsibility of educators in the quest for a sustainable quality of life is stressed and illustrated. The scales of value and the attitudes of graduates naturally carry over to their professional activity and thus directly affect the process industry. The main desired value is total commitment to quality of work and environment. Examples of stereotypical patterns of thought to be overcome are: engineering competence is measured by technical aptitudes only; product life cycles and macroscopic material balances may conveniently be closed by a landfill; there is plenty of space on Earth for more landfills; environmental concern is an internal company problem; a passing grade on one written exam satisfies personal and institutional expectations. The time and sustained effort to reach a targeted change of attitude are realistically determined. A new thinking model is presented that has been tested over several years. Its key components are: objective, transparent and progressive evaluation schemes containing fines for unprofessional behaviour; demands on quality that are not negotiable; specific debates and assignments on product life cycles and waste logistics; extrapolation of material balances to a global scale. Graduates have confessed to high levels of professional satisfaction as a result of their newly defined thought patterns. The experience shows that the international engineering teaching community can and must contribute significantly to winning the challenge of sustainability.
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