Professor Michele John is Professor of Sustainability and Director of the Sustainable Engineering Group (SEG) at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.
Micheles scholarship advances the proposition that sustainability is not an environmental add-on, but the defining organising principle of 21st century engineering. She advocates for education that is focused on the development of a sustainability mindset and positions sustainability as a governance and ethical imperative. She is committed to reshaping tertiary education so that future professionals are focused on planetary boundaries and intergenerational equity.
She is the co-author of Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (2022) and Editor of The Routledge Handbook on Global Sustainability Knowledge and Thinking in the 21st Century (Open Access, 2025), a landmark volume advancing global sustainability scholarship and systems thinking for a complex century. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003171577/routledge-handbook-global-sustainability-education-thinking-21st-century-michele-john
Since 2014, Professor John has served as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Recycling Journal, shaping international discourse on resource recovery, circular economy transitions and responsible materials engineering and stewardship.
Michele works at the interface of technical performance and governance capability, exposing the disconnect between sustainability rhetoric and measurable impact. Her scholarship challenges reductionist sustainability metrics and advances governance focused accountability frameworks.
Her work seeks to inform engineering design, corporate stewardship and global sustainability governance in order to advance, industry standards, the global corporate governance discourse and the evolution of sustainability education curriculum reform internationally.
Her research has led the development of new sustainability indicators and assessment frameworks, interrogates the superficiality of current ESG and sustainability reporting mechanisms, advances circular economy and industrial symbiosis application and has highlighted the importance of including biodiversity impacts and social justice in engineering design.
Professor Michele John is Professor of Sustainability and Director of the Sustainable Engineering Group (SEG) at Curtin University. She is the co-author of Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (2022) and Editor of The Routledge Handbook on Global Sustainability Knowledge and Thinking in the 21st Century (Open Access, 2025), a landmark volume advancing global sustainability scholarship. Michele has served as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Recycling Journal since 2014. Michele works at the interface of technical performance and governance capability, exposing the disconnect between sustainability rhetoric and measurable impact. Her research shapes international discourse on resource recovery, circular economy transitions and stewardship.