Teaching sustainable entrepreneurship to engineering students: the ...

European Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 31, No. 2, May 2006, 155–167

Teaching sustainable entrepreneurship to engineering students: the case of Delft University of Technology HANS BONNET†, JACO QUIST*‡, DAAN HOOGWATER§, JOHAN SPAANS¶ and CAROLINE WEHRMANN †Kluyver Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Julianalaan 67, NL-2628 BC Delft, The Netherlands ‡Technology Dynamics & Sustainable Development Group, Faculty of Technology, Policy, Management, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, NL-2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands §Contract Management Office, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, NL-2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands ¶SMC bv, Postbox 59, NL-2270 AB Voorburg, The Netherlands Institute for Technology & Communication, Faculty of Technology, Policy, Management, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, NL-2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands (Received 24 April 2005; in final form 14 September 2005) Sustainability, enhancement of personal skills, social aspects of technology, management and entrepreneurship are of increasing concern for engineers and therefore for engineering education. In 1996 at Delft University of Technology this led to the introduction of a subject on sustainable entrepreneurship and technology in the course programmes of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences Engineering. This subject combines lectures, project work in which a business plan is written, sustainability and presentation training. This paper shows that it has been possible to combine entrepreneurship, sustainability and project education successfully in a subject for undergraduate engineering students and describes background, assumptions, outline, results and recent adjustments of this subject. It includes a discussion on how to integrate sustainability and entrepreneurship in terms of triple P (People, Profit, Planet) and how to incorporate it pragmatically in the key elements of a business plan: (1) business idea, mission and strategy; (2) context, stakeholder and market analysis; (3) marketing; (4) production; (5) organisation and management; (6) finance and reporting. Attention is paid to results regarding the business plan, spin-off like start-ups and also to the learning results of both students and lecturers. It ends drawing some lessons derived from the subject’s results and the learning experiences of both students and lecturers. Keywords: Engineering education; Sustainable entrepreneurship; Skills; Project education

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Introduction

Sustainability, development of personal skills, social aspects of technology and entrepreneurship are of increasing concern for engineers and therefore also for engineering education. *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

European Journal of Engineering Education ISSN 0304-3797 print/ISSN 1469-5898 online © 2006 SEFI http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/03043790600566979

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De Graaff and Ravesteijn (2001) have called this ‘training complete engineers’. During a revision of the engineering curricula at Delft University of Technology in the mid-1990s, it was decided to extend the share of personal skill development, social sciences, management and economics in all curricula. At the School of Chemical Engineering, a subject on sustainable entrepreneurship was therefore introduced in the third year of the curriculum† bringing together entrepreneurship (training), project work (in which a business plan is written), sustainability and presentation training. The focus of this paper is on how this has been put in practice since 1996, which appeared to be a real challenge. At that time concepts for sustainable business still had to be developed and teaching material and subjects on this topic were hardly available. In this paper the topic of sustainable entrepreneurship is approached both from the entrepreneurial side and the sustainability side. It also describes how these have been combined in this subject for undergraduate engineering students and how it has evolved. Briefly, this subject combines lectures, project work in which a business plan is written, sustainability, which is integrated in both the lectures ant the business plan and presentation training. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 deals with developments in industry and society and how these influenced changes in the course programmes at the faculty of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Engineering, which eventually led to the subject in sustainable entrepreneurship. Section 3 discusses sustainable business and sustainable entrepreneurship in general terms. Section 4 describes how sustainability was integrated in a practical approach for entrepreneurship and writing business plans that would also be applicable in an educational setting. The subjects’ outline is described in section 5, while section 6 contains results including a few case examples and evaluation results. Finally, section 7 contains conclusions, recommendations and a discussion on the lessons learnt and the broader relevance, including the transferability to other course programmes both in engineering and management.

2. Why sustainable entrepreneurship in chemical engineering and how? The educational aim of the School of Chemical Engineering at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) has always been to provide its students with the knowledge and skills needed for their first job in the chemical industry. Therefore, the School maintained good contacts with the chemical industry in the Netherlands and the professional organisation of chemists in the Netherlands.‡ This included regular deliberations over structure and content of the chemical engineering curriculum. When discussing the implications of extending the fouryear curriculum into a five-year curriculum halfway through the 1990s, it was recommended by industry and professional organisations to work also on the entrepreneurial skills of the graduates, which resulted in the subject in sustainable entrepreneurship and technology. At the same time, more trends could be observed, which also pointed in the direction of such a subject. These included: 1. A change in structure of large companies: from large, very centrally guided into smaller, decentralised business units and a changing focus from bulk chemicals production to producing fine chemicals with a higher profit margin. 2. A growing importance of biochemical engineering, life sciences and biotechnology. † Since the recent shift to the BSc-MSc system in higher education in the Netherlands, the third year is the last year of the BSc programmes. ‡ This is the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society; its Dutch abbreviation is KNCV.

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3. A growing importance of entrepreneurial skills for chemical engineers in companies, while working at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was becoming more important too, especially for graduates in Biochemical Engineering and Materials Science Engineering. 4. An increase in regulatory measures to protect the environment and the enforcement of environmental regulation. 5. A growing public and industrial awareness of the limits of energy sources and raw materials, while end-of-pipe were increasingly seen as not sufficient for the longer term. 6. A growing awareness of ‘responsible care’and the ‘social licence to operate’in the chemical industry. One of the implications of the shift towards business units is that unit management requires a larger involvement of more people in running a company and a shift from top-down in the direction of bottom-up. Engineers and scientists could no longer focus only on engineering activities, but also have to deal with ‘make or buy’ decisions, marketing, finance, and managerial affairs. This calls for other skills in addition to the regular engineering skills. Moreover, it was advocated that shareholder value was more served with the production of fine chemicals and specialities than with bulk products. This also stimulated the shift to smaller business units. Concerning the relevance of SMEs, this is especially true for the emerging life sciences industry. This was relevant as biotechnology and biochemical engineering, focusing on what is presently also called industrial genomics, is one of the specialisations at the School for Chemical Engineering at TU Delft. At the same time, consciousness increased that end-of-pipe solutions would fail to deliver sufficient reductions in emissions. Furthermore, responsible care programmes were emerging in the chemical industry. This stimulated not only a more environmentally friendly design of the production processes, but also a more critical look to the environmental attitude of suppliers and clients under the motto ‘pollution prevention pays’. The call for product stewardship emerged too and had a large impact on the chemical industry. The awareness that raw materials, especially oil and minerals, are depleting appeared also strongly in the 1990s. As a result, it was decided at the School for Chemical Engineering to integrate business, entrepreneurship and sustainability in the curriculum in a new subject. The question that arose next was, what kind of subject would meet this need? In addition, entrepreneurship and sustainability were not the only changes, as personal skill enhancement and project education emerged as important topics in the engineering curricula too. Furthermore, there are several options to evoke entrepreneurial and personal skills in students. These include: (1) offering a number of subjects on micro-economy, business administration, marketing, financing, etc.; (2) integrating management and environment in the compulsory internship in industry, (3) as is the case in the School of Physics, letting the students do a management game; and (4) focusing on entrepreneurship, asking students to write business plans for starting a company or developing a new product and introducing it in the market. Regarding these options, the lecturers in charge of putting the Schools’ decision into practice decided unanimously and in a very short time for the latter option of making a business plan and a focus on entrepreneurship. This decision was based on the following basic and practical considerations. First, a basic reason for focusing on a business plan instead of proposing a management game is that there are clear differences between managers and entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur, on the basis of his or her ideas, sets the targets, and provides the necessary means to realise these targets under own supervision. Yet a manager does not set the targets personally, nor does he or she have to provide the means him

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or herself. So, an entrepreneur is more independent and has more room for both success and failure. The risks are therefore higher, while there is no transfer of responsibilities. Second, students have to integrate sustainability in the business plan themselves, which stimulates internalisation and raising awareness with respect to sustainability more than when offering this separately. Furthermore, the internalisation of external costs can be seen as a prerequisite for maintaining a capitalistic (free-market) economy on the long term. Third, when writing a business plan you have to integrate aspects from a wide range of topics and disciplines offered, which should include economics, organisational aspects, product design, production and strategy. Fourth, teamwork skills and project skills are also trained when group work and project education are applied. In addition, presentation skills are considered of utmost importance in selling a product or a business idea (next to the elaboration in a business plan), while these are also important on many other occasions in the profession of an engineer. There were also some practical considerations. One such consideration was that offering a large number of lectures on the subject would take more space in the curriculum than was available. Furthermore, the existing internship in a chemical company was primarily devoted to doing research for the company. Past practice had shown that describing and analysing the organisation would, in general, come down to copying existing organisation schemes without any reflection. As a consequence, the decision of integrating sustainability, business and entrepreneurship was a very conscious choice. Actually, the aim was to ask students to treat sustainability as one of the core competencies and to include this in the competitive edge of their plan. However, how to do this and how to make it practical in a subject for engineering students in the last year of their undergraduate study? And how to combine this with project work and development of personal skills in a subject of limited time? Clearly, integrating this wide range of aspects and topics in a subject on sustainable entrepreneurship for engineering students requires contributions from several disciplines: engineering, social sciences, management sciences, sustainability studies and communication.† As a result, design and practice of the subject became the result of co-makership of lecturers from several disciplines from different faculties at TU Delft. This was also in line with a basic policy at the School of Chemical Engineering and Materials Engineering, which says that involvement of engineering staff in non-engineering subjects and co-makership is important and necessary. This guarantees a firm engineering related basis, while it also stimulates the acceptance of non-engineering subjects by students.

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Sustainability, entrepreneurship and business: a brief overview

Since the start of the subject there has been discussion among the lecturers involved how to integrate sustainability in the subject on Sustainable Entrepreneurship. This is not a great surprise, as since the introduction of the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development in the Brundtland report (WCED 1987) and the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, there have been extensive discussions what would be the implications for business. The debate included how implications would be different for both SMEs and multi-national companies (MNCs). Furthermore, there emerged also a need for tools and approaches for incorporating sustainability into everyday business activities, while maintaining important features of successful † This is also reflected in the background and affiliation of the authors. Next to chemical engineers, the subject involves lecturers from the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management including technology assessment, entrepreneurship, communication training and an entrepreneur.


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enterprising and entrepreneurship. Apart from these issues, the debate among the lecturers was also affected by the Dutch term† for sustainable that refers also to continuity and robustness, which are also important aspects in business and entrepreneurship. The outcome of this discussion was that continuity and robustness would be treated as very important for companies, but that the emphasis should be on sustainable business and sustainable entrepreneurship in line with the definition of the Brundtland report (WCED 1987). It defined sustainable development as a development in which present generations fulfil their needs in such a way that future generations can fulfil their needs on a similar level. Since the mid-1990s, many authors have dealt with ways of integrating sustainability in corporations and entrepreneurship. The focus has also shifted from environmental management and compliance to regulation to sustainability, pro-activeness and environmental leadership (e.g. Keijzers 2002). New concepts like the concept of People, Planet, Profit—also known as the 3P bottom line—have emerged (Elkington 1997). There has developed an increasing interest on this topic from the business community, public interest groups, policy-makers, academics, and researchers, which has also led to new concepts, approaches, definitions and tools (e.g. Elkington 1997, Nattras and Altomare 1999, Cramer 2003). This can be illustrated with a few examples. The World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBSCD 1995) defined Sustainable Development as ‘ensuring a better quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come’. Their definition of eco-efficiency sounds almost like a corporate mission statement: ‘the delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity—through the life cycle—to a level in line with earth’s estimated carrying capacity’. The Dutch Social Economic Council (SER 2000) defined sustainable entrepreneurship as ‘to intentionally create value in the three dimensions of people, planet and profit, and to maintain a dialogue with stakeholders in society’. Others have dealt with the synergy of innovation, increasing eco-efficiency and increased competitiveness (Ashford 1994, Porter and Van der Linde 1995, Fussler and James 1996, Cramer 1999, Maxwell and Van der Vorst 2003). Cramer (1999) also developed and applied a strategic approach to evaluate business units on their potential and financial constraints for environmental improvement in a large chemical company. Furthermore, Keijzers (2002) made a plea to include the interests of future generations through the use of ecological and social criteria for entrepreneurship and business. In addition, government papers and publications dealing with business and sustainability have appeared in most developed countries, while several evaluation schemes have become available to assess relevant sustainability parameters in companies (see for instance www.globalreporting.org). It has also been argued that sustainable entrepreneurship and a transition to the sustainable enterprise goes beyond compliance with environmental and social regulation through pollution prevention, improvement of eco-efficiency and resource productivity towards optimised integrated economic, social and ecological business strategies (Keijzers 2002). There is also a growing interest in the role of banks and opportunities for banks and other investors to meet sustainability criteria and standards. In addition, a growing number of MNCs including Shell and Unilever have incorporated sustainability in their mission and issue separate reports on their sustainability plans, objectives and progress.

† In Dutch the term for sustainable is ‘duurzaam’, while ‘duurzaam’ in the sense of business refers also to continuity (of a company) and to durability (of a product).

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4. Toward a framework for sustainable business plans at TU Delft It appeared that the 3P concept was very useful for the subject, as it makes the complex concept of sustainable development applicable in a business setting (although it must be further operationalised). 3P implies that profit maximisation is not the only goal and responsibility of corporations. The starting point is that profits should be achieved in a sustainable way, which means in agreement with ecological and social criteria (to be derived from sustainability definitions). This can result in what many people refer to as ‘a licence to operate’. Planet refers to environmental issues and the availability of energy and raw materials. People refer to social aspects of employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Of course, Profit remains a major objective, but it must be balanced with Planet and People. However, the general level described in the previous section or using indicators for each of the 3Ps is still of little help for those who want to incorporate sustainability when writing business plans for new products or new companies, for those who manage companies, and last but not least for students working on sustainable business plans. In addition, traditional guides and textbooks on business plan writing (e.g. TCE 1996, Kubr et al. 1998) do not deal with the issue of sustainability. Recent text books do a much better job concerning sustainability aspects, but focus often on specific aspects like operations and products (e.g. De Ron 2001). However, in general, those do not deal with writing business plans and the skills required for this, while also neglecting other important elements like marketing and strategy. Therefore, a pragmatic and integral approach has been developed, which combines 3P with the main elements of a business plan, which also relate to the main functions or activities of a business. This approach can be seen as a practical framework based on the fact that each of the major activities within a company or the relevant parts within a business plan should be replaced by a substitute that is sustainable. As a consequence, at TU Delft students are taught that a sustainable business plan should contain a sustainable alternative for each of the major elements within a business plan or the major activities of a company. It includes the following. • Sustainable mission and strategy. Sustainability in mission and strategy is important as these refer to the main objectives and aims, while ensuring involvement of top management and board. This also includes the corporate values and the question of which values are important for sustainable business (e.g. VROM 2001). • Stakeholder involvement in addition to regular context and market analyses. The context, trend and market analysis should also be extended with both sustainability aspects and an extension of relevant stakeholders in line with recent developments in marketing and communication approaches (e.g. Cramer 2003). • Sustainable product idea and marketing. Marketing starts with the perceived ‘bundle of benefits’ of a product idea for customers and consumers. Next to a sustainable product idea, it is possible to substitute one of the marketing concepts by a novel one like societal marketing or green marketing (Kotler 1991, Looman 1996). • Sustainable production and innovation. Presently, there are a growing number of possible applications and tools for operations including Environmental Management Systems, Life Cycle Methodologies, Best Available Practices, etc. Furthermore, there are EcoDesign approaches for environmental product development and other environmental innovation strategies that combine innovation with environmental improvement, social benefits and financial profit at the same time (e.g. Ashford 1994, Porter and Van der Linde 1995, Maxwell and Van der Vorst 2003). Of course, products and innovations should always meet customer or consumer demands at the same time. • Sustainable organisation and management. Concerning management, several alternatives are available nowadays that stimulate the ‘People’ pillar, or the ‘Planet’ pillar or both. It


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includes labour aspects not only related to the company, but also to the supply chain and businesses downstream. It also concerns employee education and company values, including corporate social and ethical standards. Although incorporating sustainability in this topic seems easier for larger companies than for starting enterprises, as for the latter it might be more difficult to set sustainability demands on their suppliers. However, new SMEs include outstanding examples of enterprises having high sustainability standards with respect to their products and their management including creating opportunities for new sustainable business. • Financial accounting, reporting and sustainability. Although extremely important for evaluating the financial performance of corporations and evaluating investment proposals, traditional approaches do not show how financial results are achieved and have little or no relationship with the People and Planet aspects. However, new approaches and tools for financial accounting are being developed† (for an overview, Bennett and James 2000), which is also the case for reporting (e.g. www.globalreporting.org).

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Outline and organisation

The subject has been obligatory for all students both in Chemical Engineering (including bio-process technology) and Material Sciences and Engineering since the start of 1996. Since 2001, students in Life Sciences and Technology have followed the subject too. The subject is taught early in the third year of the study ensuring a basic knowledge in science and technology. Four credit points equalling 160 hours of study (equivalent to 6 ects) for the median student are allocated to the subject, while one day per week is scheduled for this course from September to December. Officially, this covers two educational periods, which is together one semester. One ects is meant for presentation training (taught by lecturers from the Institute for Technology and Communication), one ects is for the lectures and 4 ects are meant for writing a business plan in groups of five students. The following aims have been set‡ : • • • • • •

instil the notion of entrepreneurship in the minds of the students; make the students aware of the restraints an entrepreneur has to deal with; know how to apply entrepreneurship in a technology-based company; make the students aware of the social responsibilities of companies; give special attention the sustainability in a business context; and make a proper oral and written presentation of the business plans.

Briefly, the subject runs as follows. Before the start students are divided into groups of five persons, while each group has to write a business plan. Groups start to generate as many business ideas as possible. After a rough selection the three highest-ranking ideas have to be elaborated into a short (one page) description after which groups suggest their preference. The primary choice has to be approved by the lecturers, which takes place early in the subject. Each group is supervised by one of the lecturers involved and has (two)weekly faceto-face contact with their supervisor for discussing progress, draft chapters and bottlenecks. Furthermore, the lecturers meet several times for co-ordination and alignment, for discussing † This includes methods and tools for environment-related financial management on the level of the firm, for lifecycle costing for products (on the level of chains) and for societal costs and benefits. The latter deals on the level of society with the generation, analysis and use of monetised estimates of environmental damage (and benefits) created by the activities of an organisation, site or project and takes into account for instance cleaning costs after ending operations. ‡ The subject was not conceived to get students starting their own business (although a couple of them did). The aim was to make them aware of the role of entrepreneurs in businesses and their own skills and interest in entrepreneurship.

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progress, for evaluation of both the plans and the course, which is organised by the course co-ordinator. When deciding on the topic of the business plan it is stressed that it has to be a product rather than a process or a service (like consultancy). This is because more aspects of entrepreneurship and sustainability come together when making business out of a product. For instance, when manufacturing tangible products there is always the issue of waste and emissions in production, usage and disposal, while this is in general much less and a lot easier to deal with in services and consultancy. Furthermore, physical products coincide better with the interest and knowledge of engineering students. However, it is not the aim to include regular engineering process or product design activities in this exercise. Moreover, it is not meant to lure the students in the technology, as it is a non-technological subject. As a consequence, students are deliberately steered away from the technological parts of the plan, and encouraged to use process or product designs made by older students as the basis for their business plan. Students in Life Sciences and Technology may also use ideas from the (socially responsible) design subject in their second year. Students are also encouraged to contact external companies and organisations for information. Quite often, companies are willing to get involved in the student project. After development and approval of the business topic, the ongoing elaboration of the plan functions as the lead motive, while training in presenting takes place too. The actual subject is given as a mix of lectures and tutorials, supported by a book (TCE 1996) and a reader with background material on relevant topics. Relevant sustainability topics are dealt with in a separate chapter in the reader (Bras-Klapwijk 2000). Six lectures deal with the following topics during the first six weeks of the course period: introduction (entrepreneur versus manager) and business idea generation, sustainability and business, market and context analysis, marketing, production and management, and finance, while each topic relates to a specific chapter of the business plan. Sustainability needs to be integrated in all chapters and needs also to be evaluated in a separate chapter. Each lecture involves both one of the lecturers involved in the course (that is a mix of chemical engineers, economists, entrepreneurs, sustainable innovation scholars and communication scholars) and a guest lecturer from business, mostly from the chemical or life sciences industry. Each lecture lasts three hours including the guest lecture and interactive exercises. Co-ordination and organisation of both the content and the programme of each lecture is the responsibility of the lecturer in charge of that particular topic. To keep the students apace with the progress of the lectures, they are urged to discuss their application of the topic at the next lecture. Presentation training is given separately in smaller groups of only 10 students, while six sessions of two hours are scheduled for each group. Tutorials take place regularly between the lectures and after the lecture period until the business plans have been completed. Students are asked to follow the framework as proposed in the previous section and are urged to incorporate sustainability in all elements of the business plan. However, it appeared that it was not possible to implement all sustainable alternatives fully within the credit points available. Especially the financial evaluation schemes incorporating sustainability appeared to be too extensive to include these in this subject. The subject is ended by the oral presentation of the business plans after each group has discussed its plan with one of the account managers from the local branch of a bank. The account managers evaluate the plans on their financial and overall credibility, while their judgements are also fed into the final marking of the plans. At least two lecturers (one from the engineering faculty and one from the management faculty) are involved in the evaluation of each plan using criteria like originality of the (business) idea, sustainability, context analysis, marketing plan, production and management plan and financial evaluation.


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Substance and student learning results Business plan results

The subject has run since 1996 and until 2002 about 100 plans were written. In general, the majority of topics is technologically oriented. Though this may occasionally lead to a strong focus on the technological part (product, production), it appears to be easier for engineering students as they have already some knowledge of the topic. This is also confirmed when students were still allowed to develop a plan for either a service or a consulting, which resulted almost always in thin non-realistic plans. Topics elaborated in business plans include waste processing and recycling (manure, jarosite, etc.), biological pest combatants (pheromone traps, biological enemies), biofuels, biotechnology applications, solar cells and solar cell applications, new materials and materials applications. Table 1 presents a few examples. Outstanding results include:

• one patent application was filed based on the product idea of a student group; • the bank would be willing to invest in most of the plans; • a few students started a business after having completed the subject (sometimes even before graduation); • persons from industry, involved by students in developing their plans, were in general satisfied with the results.

Table 1.

Examples of business plans.

Biocoal: Green electricity and fuel from manure and plant waste In 1998 a business plan was made for a company producing electricity and solid fuels from biomass (waste) and manure. This plan (if carried out) would reduce manure surplus in the Netherlands, and reduce fossil fuel usage. It would be profitable, if farmers have to pay for manure removal (which may be introduced in the Netherlands). Shortly after this plan was prepared, the major waste processor in the area of Rotterdam started a pilot quite similar to this idea. This implies that the student group had identified and elaborated a business idea that was identified by real players in the market too. W2W: Sustainable processing of jarosite and sewage sludge In 1999 a business plan was made for a company (35 employees) producing metals, basalt stones and sulphur through annual processing of 100,000 tonnes of jarosite and 30,000 tonnes of sewage sludge. Customers included metal-using companies, dike constructors and maintainers and the sulphur using chemical industry. It was based on a novel and more attractive process for jarosite treatment, and would solve the present jarosite accumulation at a major zinc-producing site in the Netherlands. A condition was that the government would not continue to allow present jarosite storage in basins. Sens-o-coil: Bio-sensor for blood typing In 2001 a business plan was made for a company (40 employees) producing biosensors for the detection of proteins in patient samples. It is based on a conformation change of a receptor while recognising its target molecule. This plan would reduce the time for blood-typing to one minute. The apparatus would fit in a brief case. Providing emergency ambulances with the device would result in having the proper blood ready at the time of arrival at the hospital of the patient, thus possibly saving lives. It could also be used in ordinary laboratory practice and freeing analysts for other tasks. It is cheap, reliable and specific. It was found by the students that the product was at the same time also tested in Canada for possible use. HYTWIST: A new type of hinge In 1997 a business plan was made for a company for a new type of hinge, based on a new material Hylite. Hylite is a laminate consisting of aluminium and polypropylene. The hinges are simple to produce, lighter, cheaper, and more sustainable than the ordinary ones. The product lacks the unnerving screeching sound of metal hinges. Samples were added to the business plan, supporting the feasibility of producing it.

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6.2 Learning results Next to the project results (business plans and presentations), it is interesting to focus on the learning results of the students. Clearly, different kinds of learning results can be expected. First of all, there is an increase expected in the cognitive knowledge of students regarding entrepreneurship, sustainability, the integration of sustainability in business (plans) and presenting. Second, enhancement of personal skills is expected. Third, the subject is also meant for increasing the understanding of entrepreneurship and business opportunities in relation to technology and also of the companies’ social responsibilities. Fourth, the subject might contribute to conceptual learning with respect to sustainability and how this can be incorporate in running a business and writing business plans. Although these learning results are not systematically and deeply investigated, it is possible to discuss these based on our annual focus group evaluations with the students, the annual evaluation meetings of the lecturers, the appraisal of the business plans, the tutorials and the final presentations by the student groups. From the business plans, the tutorials and the final presentations, it becomes very clear that the students gain considerable knowledge regarding the range of topics offered. Students also have quite a clear picture of what is important for (internal) entrepreneurship and how this relates to their personal interests. They have also discovered if they have an interest in entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial skills, while most of the students find themselves not of the entrepreneurial kind. However, they claim to have obtained sufficient skills to cope with this whenever the challenge arises. Furthermore, many students consider the subject still out of the mainstream of their perceived profession. In writing the sustainability parts of their business plan students, often have problems with the tension between the (perceived contradictory) demands regarding people, planet and profit aspects and the integration of these. ‘Are these not mutually exclusive?’ is an often-voiced remark. Sometimes students also try to solve sustainability problems once and for all. This implies that they lack the view that it is not sustainability per se that is the issue, but that it is about the process of sustainable development and the contribution that the proposed business plan might make. However, it seems that after this subject students have a better understanding of the complexity of the concept of sustainability, but also regarding the opportunities for integrating it in business and business plans and how to do this. Concerning enhancement of skills, this is clear with respect to presenting. However, it also includes increasing the ability to work as a team and specific project education skills, although these are not so clearly perceived by the students. In general, students consider it more difficult than expected due to, for instance, the economic viewpoint† and the multidisciplinary nature, but they have accepted the subject and learned to deal with it.

7.

Conclusion

This paper has described the approach, outline and results of a subject on Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Technology that has been part of the curriculum for Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and Materials Engineering at Delft University of Technology since 1996. It can be concluded that it has been possible to combine entrepreneurship, sustainability and project education successfully in a subject for undergraduate engineering students. In this subject student groups are taught how to write a business plan based on an idea they have † This can be illustrated by the marketing description of a product. Engineering students tend to describe products in terms of technical features and functionalities, while students in business and marketing describe products as bundles of benefits for customers or consumers.


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generated and decided upon themselves. Furthermore, they learn how sustainability based on the concept of 3P should be integrated into the business plan, while the subject results in skill enhancement too. Interestingly, this subject contributes not only to the enhancement of skills including entrepreneurial skills, presentation skills, problem-based learning skills, teamwork and co-operation skills, but it also makes students conscious of their capability for entrepreneurship and how this can be done within a sustainability framework. This relates not only to application of tools, but it also makes clear to students that sustainability is not limited to the ecological component but also contains social and economic components. There are indications, based on the focus group evaluations and the tutorials, that the subject leads to conceptual learning with respect to sustainability and may contribute to the necessary paradigm shift with respect to sustainability. Therefore, it enhances the awareness of the (bio)chemical engineer with respect to the responsibilities towards society. However, this awareness is not the result of this single subject only, as it is also dealt with in several other mandatory subjects in the three course programmes in which this subject is taught. Many students perceive the subject as interesting and useful, but as quite difficult. This is due to several reasons such as the different paradigms that are combined (engineering, entrepreneurship, sustainability), different types of learning objectives (skills, soft learning, ‘hard’ knowledge), and the unstructured nature of the project education approach applied. Furthermore, students were mainly subject to the problem-solving engineering paradigm before the subject, while they have a strong interest in engineering and much less in non-engineering topics, as they have decided to study engineering. The subject on Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Technology also fits in the present broadening of the engineering curricula with additional topics like personal skills, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and societal aspects. What makes this subject unique, however, is that it integrates all these, thereby also illustrating the complexity of real life and of working as a professional. This complexity includes the possible tensions between different aspects of 3P and aims to show how can be dealt with these responsibly. Interestingly, it also fits in the present policy for integrating sustainability in all engineering curricula at TU Delft (Mulder 2004, see also www.odo.tudelft.nl). This policy provides a basic subject in sustainability and engineering in all undergraduate programmes, in an elective graduation specialisation for all graduate students and in intertwining sustainability in subjects where appropriate. The subject on sustainable entrepreneurship and technology is a good example of how sustainability can be integrated in a subject also devoted to other topics (in this case entrepreneurship). Lecturing this subject has also led to the development of a practical framework for sustainable business and writing sustainable business plans. This means that for each major element of a business plan or a major company function, a sustainable alternative must be applied. The development of this framework can also be seen as the result of the joint learning process of the lecturers involved. As mentioned earlier, this subject involves lecturers with different backgrounds: chemical engineering, entrepreneurship and business, sustainability, innovation and an entrepreneur. An ongoing exchange and discussion among lecturers with different backgrounds, opinions and professional frameworks is therefore necessary for making this subject work. This agrees very well with the starting point at the School of Chemical Engineering that non-engineering subjects in the course programme require co-makership between lecturers in chemical engineering and lecturers in other fields like social sciences, skills, management sciences. This stimulates acceptance not only among the students, but also among staff and management of the course programme, while it is expected that this will also result in better learning results among the students. Concerning the broader relevance of this subject and its results, we can mention that it also fits in a broader trend of stimulating entrepreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship.

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The latter is also referred to as corporate social responsibility both in the Netherlands and internationally. Furthermore, it also fits in emerging governmental policies stimulating socalled high-tech entrepreneurship aiming at harvesting more of the possible socio-economic fruits of newly developed technological knowledge. (High-tech) Entrepreneurship is presently an emerging topic at TU Delft, where policies have been implemented stimulating students and graduates to start their own business and commercialise knowledge and patents generated at the TU Delft. The university provides them with different types of facilities, including offering several subjects in entrepreneurship or aspects of it, offices and possibilities for hiring laboratories or other facilities. The subject described and evaluated in this paper contributes to this policy as it functions also as an early eye opener for this opportunity. Finally, outline and approach of this subject is transferable to other engineering curricula, while it may have potential for management and MBA curricula too. The potential for transferring the subject to other engineering curricula is very high, as it is based on a broad practical framework for sustainable business plans, while it leaves the decision for the business plans to the students. This implies that, for instance, students in aviation engineering, industrial design or mechanical engineering can develop business plans based on the ideas in their discipline. The transferability potential to other types of higher education might be slightly lower, as the present subject focuses on technological entrepreneurship. However, it seems an interesting and challenging idea to bring this subject to management or MBA curricula and to extend it with some technological or engineering knowledge, while keeping the integration of sustainability in the subject. Last but definitely not least, the practical framework for sustainable business and incorporating sustainability in business plans can clearly have relevance for companies and entrepreneurs outside the university. Acknowledgements The authors greatly appreciate the help of the following persons without whom we would never have been able to develop and run this subject. Jan Koolhaas and Karel Mulder helped creating the subject and co-running it the first years. Pieter van Mourik for giving the idea to combine business and sustainability. Theo Luyendijk for giving us insight in the way of thinking of materials scientists. Remke Bras-Klapwijk for writing the original chapter on sustainable entrepreneurship and Bob van der Laaken for the English language check. Wouter Hofman, Arjan Minnigh, Sjoerd Romkes, Joost Paques and Marjan Bassa who were studentassistants. The account managers and the direction of the local branch of the RABO bank for their willingness to discuss the plans with the students. Last but not least, all lecturers that have been involved in giving presentation training. References Ashford, N.A., An innovation-based strategy for the environment. In: Resources for the Future, edited by A.M. Finkel and D. Golding, 1994, pp. 275–314 (Washington: Island Press). Bennett, M. and James, P., The Green Bottom Line: Environmental Accounting for Management, Current Practice and Future Trends, 2000 (Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing). Bras-Klapwijk, R., Duurzaam Ondernemen [Sustainable Entrepreneurship]. In: Reader Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Technology, edited by J.A.B.A.F. Bonnet, R.M. Bras-Klapwijk, A.D. Minnigh, S.J.P. Romkes and J. Spaans, 2000, pp. 95–132 (Delft: Faculty of Applied Sciences, TU Delft). Cramer, J., Towards Sustainable Business: Connecting Environment and Market, 1999 (The Hague: SMO, Foundation for Society and Enterprise). Cramer, J., Learning about Corporate Social Responsibility: the Dutch Experience, 2003 (Amsterdam: IOS Press). De Graaff, E. and Ravesteijn, W., Training complete engineers: global enterprise and engineering education. Eur. J. Engng Educ., 2001, 26, 419–427. De Ron, A., Duurzaam Ondernemen: een inleiding [Sustainable Business: an introduction], 2001 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Publishers).


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Notes on contributors Hans Bonnet is an emeritus associate professor at Kluyver Institute of Biotechnology, department of Societal Aspects of Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology. Jaco Quist is an assistant professor in Technology Assessment and Sustainable Innovation at the faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management. His teaching includes technology policy, technology and society, sustainable innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship. His research focuses on (system) innovations towards sustainability and on backcasting approaches. Daan Hoogwater was educated as a chemical engineer and is presently contract manager at Delft University of Technology. In his work he is an intermediate between industry and the university regarding research contracts, patents and facilitating young entrepreneurs. Johan Spaans is a consultant in business administration and a freelance lecturer at the Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (Engineering Economics, Management and Entrepreneurship). Caroline Wehrmann is a lecturer in communication and technology at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. Currently, she is involved in the development of an MSc programme in Science Education and Communication.