Core Competencies for Sustainable Solutions Engineering

Abstract

The thesis aims to determine what are the core competencies that will be needed by professionals to progress the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The purpose of answering this research question is to both inform the reader on what are the core competencies necessary to progress the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals through sustainable decision-making and promote the Sustainable Solutions Engineering degree program at LAB University of Applied Sciences. The research is comprised of a literature review, which was meant to provide the researcher with sufficient background information to propose the core competencies. The proposed core competencies as well as the past, current, and future development of education in sustainability were then discussed in interviews with subject-matter experts at LAB University of Applied Sciences. The deductive thematic analysis of the interviews suggests that the proposed core competencies do support professionals to make decisions that progress the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, a larger scale research project on this topic may reveal if the results scale across a greater number of respondents of a wider range of competencies.