The built environment plays an integral role in meeting society’s most basic needs of shelter, security, mobility, community, and water and waste treatment, but it also contributes significantly to the sustainability challenges of climate change, pollution, resource consumption and land use. As society and government policy increase pressure to reduce the environmental impacts of our everyday activities, individuals must increasingly understand how the built environment they design and maintain fits into the complex environmental and human systems in which we live.

This minor provides a guiding framework for educating individuals who will design and maintain our future built environment. Students will learn the challenges and potential solutions for improved sustainability. The minor is designed to develop awareness of students in the three core themes of sustainability: engineering and science, social context, and policy and economics. The aim is both to foster the social context of engineering and to attract students from a range of departments and programs across campus to grow trans-disciplinary interactions. 

Minor Requirements