Backcasting for sustainability in engineering education: the case of Delft University of Technology

This paper deals with teaching participatory backcasting to engineering students as part of the graduate specialisation in sustainability at TU Delft. A course is described using backcasting, sustainable future visions, a systems orientation, and interviews with stakeholders and multi-disciplinary project work. The essentials of backcasting are presented before an outline and results from the backcasting course are described. It is concluded that it has been possible to develop a ‘light’ version of participatory backcasting that can be taught to engineering students in a useful way during a course of 3 study credits (4 ects; European credit transfer system (ects): 1 ects equals 28 h (3.5 days) of study; the previously used studycredit equalled 40 h (5 days) of study). The paper also outlines some results of the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) project at TU Delft.