Standard: The Ethics of Extraction: Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility into Engineering Education

Colorado School Of Mines, Golden CO

Investigators

Abstract

The mining, oil and gas industries pose some of the most vexing ethical challenges currently under debate in academic, policy, and public circles. Engineers form the core of these industries, and it is their work that directly shapes the environmental and social impacts with which the wider public must grapple. These engineers work at the intersection of corporate interests, the welfare of communities, environmental sustainability, and professional autonomy, yet very little is known about how they come to understand and navigate the ethical challenges they face in their professional practice. The project advances the existing research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) by investigating the relationship between CSR and engineering, and it will also advance engineering ethics by illuminating the unique strengths and limitations of the concept of CSR in relation to the literature on social responsibility more generally. The research has the potential to enhance the social and environmental performance of controversial industries by cultivating engineers who are better prepared to critically engage the opportunities and limitations of the current framework of CSR. Moreover, showing students the possibilities for integrating a robust sense of ethics into the mining and petroleum industries may also increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in engineering fields that are historically among the most dominated by white male students, given that women and racial minorities are more likely to pursue engineering careers with explicit opportunities to contribute to the public good. This research will use ethnographic interviews and participant-observation to discover from engineers practicing in the extractive industries: 1) if and how the dominant framework of CSR shapes their work and 2) what role particular undergraduate educational experiences played in preparing them to navigate the social and environmental challenges of their professional practice. The research team will then use these data to inform and transform the educational experiences for undergraduates at three universities with strong ties to the mining and petroleum industries (Colorado School of Mines, Virginia Tech, and Missouri University of Science and Technology). These educational innovations will be disseminated more broadly through faculty workshops at engineering education conferences and online platforms such as the National Academy of Engineering Online Ethics Center (http://www.onlineethics.org) and Integrated Network for Social Sustainability (https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/inss/).