Abstract:

The commitments included in the 2030 Agenda have led to the term sustainability being on everyone's lips and making it an essential requirement that our current actions do not compromise the needs of future generations. This goal towards sustainability forces us to make a giant change at all levels, involving not only governments but also companies, institutions and citizens.

Also, at the university, strategies have been emerging to introduce sustainability in higher education, training future professionals in the great responsibility of caring for the planet and the people who live on it. Specifically, the Universitat Politècnica de València introduced in the 2015/2016 academic year the transversal competence "Ethical, environmental and professional responsibility" in the training of its students, to be worked on through the subjects of the different study plans, the realization of the final projects and extracurricular activities.

This work aims to present how this competence (recently renamed as "Social and environmental commitment") is being worked on within the Packaging subject taught in the fourth year of the Degree in Engineering in Industrial Design and Product Development at the School Higher Technique of Design Engineering. Specifically, three action areas are Regarding content, students receive information about the impact of packaging on sustainable development, fundamentally in the environmental field, to raise their awareness about the urgency of working on sustainability in this area. As well they also receive the necessary knowledge to design sustainable packaging. In the second area, works or projects are proposed whose starting requirements are sustainable, like changing plastic for cardboard, reducing the number of inks used in the design or reducing material. Finally, in the area of evaluation, it is assessed that the students can introduce the criterion of sustainability in the different phases of the development of the packaging project. All of this is done with the firm purpose of training them in what society currently demands: professionals capable of carrying out sustainable packaging design projects, projects that are friendly from a social, economic and environmental point of view, and that contribute to a world that protects the future of humanity.

Keywords:

Design, packaging, sustainability, ODS, university, soft skills.