Engineering and technology management for a more sustainable development

Summary form only given. Sustainable development is a rather new concept that emerged because of the increasing awareness that the environment is endangered by the intensification of human technological activities producing a rapid decrease of nonrenewable resources, among which are fossil fuels, and a rapid increase of soil, water and air pollution rates. This paper presents two requirements that should be fulfilled in order that engineering and technology contribute more efficiently to the major issue of sustainable development: (i) the adaptation of engineering curricula of most engineering schools in order to take into account the new issues of a sustainable development; and (ii) the reactivation of world-wide public, democratically elected organizations whose specific task would be to define and to rule-through economic and moral incentives-the engineering and technology R&D priorities according to “sustainability” values based on intra- and inter-generational equity and solidarity