The aim of this paper is to discuss whether "social competence" is necessary for engineers to contribute to sustainable development and if it is, how to teach communication, group-processes and leadership in technical environments like engineering education programmes. The article reflects on a pedagogical project carried out in the education of land surveyors in Sweden, aimed to develop and test a pedagogical model for teaching engineering students "social competence". The findings showed that use of theories in social sciences and group oriented teaching may contribute to training communicative skills. But to include social competence in the engineering education it is necessary to start with the teachers' roles, training them in demonstrating the social dimensions in the professional situations. It also could be of great value to invite engineers from various workplaces to act like role models within the education programme. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)