Abstract
As global sustainability challenges grow in urgency and complexity, Sustainable Product Design and Engineering (SPDE) education must undergo a fundamental transformation. Traditional programs often assume students naturally develop higher-order cognitive skills, such as critical thinking (CriT), creative thinking (CreT), and systems-level sustainability awareness (DfS), without providing explicit, structured development. Emotional Well-Being (EWB), despite its proven influence on cognitive performance, is also largely overlooked in design curricula. This thesis presents the Cognitive-Driven Design for Sustainability (CDDS) Framework: a structured, interdisciplinary, and globally adaptable model that integrates CriT, CreT, DfS, and EWB as core, interdependent pillars of SPDE education.
Drawing on a multi-country case study involving Brazil, India, Portugal, and Singapore, this research exposes persistent gaps in how these competencies are taught and assessed. It finds that emotional resilience significantly correlates with student performance in CriT and CreT; that sustainability-oriented design briefs foster more holistic thinking than profit-driven ones; and that assessment inconsistencies across cultures call for a more adaptable and equitable evaluative approach. The CDDS Framework responds to these challenges with pedagogical tools such as reflective writing, systems-thinking activities, stakeholder engagement, and assumption analysis. It also introduces culturally adaptive rubrics to standardize assessment while honouring regional context. Aligned with Doughnut Economics and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the CDDS Framework anchors SPDE education in planetary and social boundaries, preparing students to work systemically and ethically. By embedding emotional well-being as a design competency and treating cognitive development as a teachable discipline, the framework repositions design education as a platform for deep, regenerative change.
This thesis calls for urgent reforms in SPDE education to raise the bar for future design professionals, ensuring they are not merely passive problem-solvers, but proactive, critical, and creative agents of sustainable transformation.