Abstract: Industrial heritage protection reflects the ethical responsibility for the artificial environment in engineering activities. Different from natural environment protection which focuses on the interest relationship between contemporary people and the future generations， industrial heritage protection pays more attention to the ethical responsibility for the artificial environment， which places more emphasis on the interest relationship between contemporary and previous generations. This attention originates from the custom of inheritance and inheritance ethics is a type of moral expression for such a custom. As a pattern to manifest inheritance ethics in engineering activities， industrial heritage protection serves as a basic principle for respecting the labor and work of previous generations， which attains its objectives via institutional ethics. As a new dimension of engineering ethics， industrial heritage protection becomes an important embodiment of inheritance ethics in engineering activities.

Key words: industrial heritage protection, engineering ethics, inheritance ethics, respect