Sustainable Chemistry : An Analysis of Sustainability in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Courses on the Bachelor Level at KTH

Abstract: A programme analysis of the compulsory courses at the bachelor level of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology study programme Engineering Chemistry was conducted in order to evaluate how sustainable development is integrated and progressed as well as the attitudes toward sustainable development from the faculty. The analysis built on governing documents as well as interviews with examiners and students. To evaluate the results of this data corpus, thematic analysis was applied, which resulted in themes of environmental focus, poor progression, vague learning objectives and student-teacher disconnect. However, the sustainable development content within the courses appeared to be majorly integrated. In order to use these results for an evaluation of sustainable development the CDIO standard framework was applied, in combination with an unpublished framework by Anders Rosén.  This resulted in the programme being evaluated to be at level 2 in the sustainable development standard, with high proximity level 3. This evaluation culminated in a development project, where suggestions mainly focused on increasing content pertaining to skills for sustainable development, covering more than environmental sustainability as well as increasing integration and progression throughout the programme.