This paper reflects on criticisms raised in the literature on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These have been criticized as creating a dichotomy between the environment and human beings that fails to address the multiple interconnections between the two. This paper focuses on SDG7—“affordable and clean energy”—and suggests that there is in fact a tripartite distinction between the environment, human beings and technology underlying the SDGs. This distinction, we argue, does not adequately represent the multiple interconnections among the various SDGs and hampers their implementation. We contend that the formulation of SDG7 produces a circular definition of sustainability, a difficulty that is currently resolved at the level of the targets and indicators in a way that regards energy technologies primarily as artifacts. By contrast, the literature on ethical aspects of energy systems largely agrees that energy is a paradigmatic example of a sociotechnical system. We contend that, by not considering this sociotechnical nature, the SDGs run the risk of implicitly defending a certain variant of technological optimism and determinism. We argue that this is disadvantageous to the environment, human well-being and technological development. In line with recent critical evaluations of the SDGs, we argue that these (and other) shortcomings can be addressed by better connecting the SDGs to human well-being. Building on recent literature that expands the scope of the Capability Approach as an alternative measure of well-being so as to include considerations of sustainability, we articulate a framework that allows us to elucidate this connection and thus to take advantage of synergies between human well-being and the environment. On the basis of the Capability Approach, we argue that equating sustainable energy with renewable energy—as is done in the transition from SDG7’s goal to its targets—is indefensible because, as part of the overarching energy systems, energy technologies cannot be classified as simply right or wrong. Rather, the indicators and targets within a framework focused on sustainability need to be (more) context sensitive, meaning that, among other things, they may vary by country and with the available technology.

Access to an adequate level of uninterrupted, high quality, affordable, sufficient and useful energy services varies dramatically across countries. While some nations still experience energy poverty and struggle to fulfil basic needs, others consume well over what is considered sufficient to sustain wellbeing and human flourishing. These imbalances represent fundamental injustices that must be urgently addressed and resolved. Given current inequalities, this paper asks, in general, whether it is possible to establish a human right to energy and, more specifically, whether the Capabilities Approach (CA) can provide a solid theoretical foundation for the claim to a human right to access energy services. We argue, on the one hand, that it is possible to identify concrete ranges of individual energy consumption that, if “translated” into useful energy services, constitute the adequate (not just minimal) preconditions for achieving core capabilities in different geographical contexts. On the other hand, we use the CA as a normative framework to argue for a capability-based human right to access necessary energy services such as nutrition, cooking fuel and electricity. We support these claims in two main ways. First, by looking at how individual energy consumption impacts human development and wellbeing. Second, we offer a comparison between access to specific energy services and the Human Development Index (HDI). The human right to access necessary energy services should be understood in both moral and legal terms. It should be integrated within both the international United Nations human rights framework and international energy law.

In the applied sciences and in engineering there is often a significant overlap between work at universities and in industry. For the individual scholar, this may lead to serious conflicts when working on joint university–industry projects. Differences in goals, such as the university’s aim to disseminate knowledge while industry aims to appropriate knowledge, might lead to complicated situations and conflicts of interest. The detailed cases of two electrical engineers and two architects working at two different universities of technology illustrate the kinds of problems individual scholars face in university–business collaborations. These cases are based on qualitative interviews and additional data and demonstrate that, while value conflicts emerge on the organizational level, it is primarily the individual researcher who must deal with such conflicts. This analysis adds to existing studies in two ways: first, it explicitly addresses normative issues framed in terms of ethical and social values, thereby going beyond the common social-science perspective of university–business collaboration. Secondly, it provides qualitative insights, thereby identifying details and issues not apparent in quantitative studies. In particular, it is evident that university–industry collaborations are prone to value conflicts not only in research but also in education and job training.

Engineering ethics courses aim to improve students’ ethical competence by developing skills such as ethical sensitivity, awareness, analysis and judgement. We present a type of virtue engineering ethics that bridges the gap between academic knowledge (in both ethics and engineering) and its application in engineering practice (particularly design). To clarify why learning about virtues can enrich students’ ethical thinking and competences, we specifically consider the virtue of practical wisdom, phronesis. At the core of the paper, we put forward a theoretical argument for including phronesis in teaching ethics within innovation courses. Training this virtue will help engineering students in dealing with the various uncertainties that will emerge from their future engineering practices. With regard to implementing our proposal, we suggest to integrate practical wisdom in ‘semi-technical’ courses that combine theoretical in-class learning and practical design experiences. We discuss the structure, aims and assessment methods of an integrated product development course that we deem preferable to and potentially more effective than stand-alone engineering ethics classes. An engineering virtue ethics can help engineering students develop a personal reflective way of thinking about concrete courses of action in engineering practice, and may have beneficial ripple effects on their lives, society and the environment.

This paper explores how the Capability Approach (CA) can enrich the concept of energy justice by assessing the impact of two cases of digitalisation in the energy sector. Digitalisation promises technical solutions to pressing challenges in the energy sector such as climate change and fossil fuel scarcity. Current academic and popular discussions of these solutions are dominated by a techno-utopian ideal, which sometimes obscures complex ethical and social challenges. Furthermore, technology assessment in the energy sector often focuses on environmental and economic aspects of sustainability, while issues of energy justice or broader ethical concerns are often a low priority. In this paper, we explore whether Nussbaum’s version of the CA can be used as a systematic approach to the assessment of technological options that helps bring energy justice into the spotlight. Drawing on examples from two different areas of the energy system, namely, smart grids for the electricity sector and autonomous vehicles for the mobility sector, we demonstrate that the CA provides a normative framework that allows for aspects of individual deliberation and as such is well suited as a normative metric for the conception of energy justice in social science.

Although models and modeling are central to engineering design, they have received much less attention than models or modeling in the philosophy of science. This paper draws on insights from the philosophical literature on models in science to elucidate models in engineering. Many of the apparent differences are a matter of degree. Models in engineering design do not function solely as representational or more general epistemic vehicles. Rather, models are central to facilitating decision making. This seems to be less pronounced in laboratory practices for scientific research than in engineering design. In engineering, often only the designers understand and determine the relation between the model and its target system. In this, they serve as truth makers and truth keepers. This social process of design is essential to understanding the role of models and modeling from a meta perspective, but is also relevant to engineer when models are reused. A better understanding of these roles can help to illuminate the roles of models in engineering. To illustrate these points, this paper uses the design of a 3D printed kayak as an example that shows how even a fairly modest engineering design project requires the creation of a multitude of different models.