Current engineering students will practice in a world of global climate change with reduced resources, in the context of an increasing global population and a desire to achieve social equity. In short, they will work in a world where sustainability is key to engineering practice. However, there is neither consensus on a set of sustainability concepts on which to base an engineering curriculum nor a standardized mechanism for assessing student learning. Engineering educators lack rigorous assessment tools to judge the success of sustainability education. Development of an assessment-oriented knowledge framework can help engineering faculty identify and structure sustainability-related content, develop methods to incorporate these concepts into the curriculum, and assess students’ learning of sustainability concepts.This paper discusses preliminary results of a project designed to develop a research-derived model for curricular development on a critical topic for future engineers’ education.