Role of Engineers in Sustainable Development

Course SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTNTUU “KPI”, 3 December 2008

Professor Jordi SegalasTechnology and Sustainable DevelopmentPolytechnic University of CataloniaBarcelona, SPAIN

Sustainable Technology Role of Engineers

Case study

Are we followers?

What role can engineers play, in What role can engineers play, in sustainable development?sustainable development?

Economy(‘inevitable laws’)

Environment(‘technology

can fix it’)

Society

The current world view - relative importance?

Economy laws are ‘inevitable’ - market laws

Environment is used to fulfill the demands of the Economy laws. (Resources, waste and pollution absorption)

Society adapts to the inevitable economy laws: As much money as sooner as possible.

But this is what we all ultimately depend on for life - so...

Environment - ‘inevitable’

Engineers provide the interfaces...

SocietySociety

InfrastructureInfrastructure

ProductsProducts

Economy- invented!Economy- invented!

Environmental laws are ‘inevitable’ - laws of nature.

Environment nurtures, supports and makes possible….Society - which has a mixture of instinctive and learned/cultural laws

Society has invented, to serve society’s purposes….Economy - whose rules and practices are totally ‘invented’by society

SO: why do so many regard Economic laws as ‘inevitable’ (globalisation, etc); but Environmental laws, and limits, as manipulable?

Serving Needs, or Quality of Life, or Wants?

• “Traditional cultures, having more limited means to satisfy human needs, tend to meet as many needs as possible with as few resources as possible.

• In contrast, industrial capitalism emphasises the creation of specialised products that fight for market niches to fill ‘needs’ that, as often as not, cannot be satisfied by material goods.

(Natural Capitalism, Ch. 14)

Example: which of these is more worth an engineer’s energy & interest?

Hasbro's Tooth Tunes toothbrushes have an MP3 player built in. They use bone-conduction to rattle the sound through your teeth for 3 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ViXgz0pGjQ&feature=related

Example: which of these is more worth an engineer’s energy & interest?

Thousands of refugee deaths from hypothermia could be prevented every year if a new hi-tech UK-designed tent lining performs well in tests in Afghanistan. A team from the University of Cambridge has developed linings for existing refugee tents that will pay for themselves in saved heating costs in one winter. They are made of a sandwich of materials: polyester wadding like you'd find in a puffa jacket and a cheap breathable waterproof membrane.

Design of Temporary Shelters for Refugees

Choosing what you are engineering for - engineers can’t be neutral

OK NEVER NEVER

GOOD MAYBE NEVER

BRILLIANT GOOD MAYBE

Technology

Luxury

Quality

No net impact High impactIn - between

Sustainability

Leadership

Sustainability

Leadership

OK NEVER NEVER

GOOD MAYBE NEVER

BRILLIANT GOOD MAYBE

Engineers’ reputation as professionals, not mercenaries - whose interests do we serve?

• “Video toothbrush”• “In development by

Panasonic, this electric toothbrush has a miniature video camera mounted beside the bristles to allow the user to see on a monitor the ‘40%’ of debris they normally miss.”• (TYNKYN - EC 11/01)

• “Video toothbrush”• “In development by

Panasonic, this electric toothbrush has a miniature video camera mounted beside the bristles to allow the user to see on a monitor the ‘40%’ of debris they normally miss.”• (TYNKYN - EC 11/01)

What do you think? - discuss in groups...

• Engineering is never neutral - every product or project - or research topic - lies somewhere on that matrix, and is going to affect the sustainable/unsustainable balance…. SO:

• What are the social responsibilities of engineering – whom do we want to serve?

What defines a socially sustainable product?

• Is being manufactured sustainably enough, whatever the product’s social impact?

• Or, should engineers push for socially sustainable features in the products: for instance….affordability and accessibility for the ‘excluded’ - the poorest 10%?

• Or, should we put our energy and interest into products and projects which serve ‘needs’rather than artificially created ‘wants’?

Case Study

http://www.interfacesustainability.com/

Enterprise core

Enterprise relation to Society

The company is part of a supply chain, with suppliers and customers and a market, our share of which we hope to increase. Products flow through that supply chain in one

direction; money flows in the other direction.

XX Century Enterprise Model

1. Zero Waste

Against ideal operational standards—zero waste—they identified $70 million in waste, based on 1994 operations—10 percent of sales!

1. Zero Waste

Total manufacturing waste sent to landfills has decreased by 66% since 1996.

1. Zero Waste

The cumulative avoided costs from waste elimination activities since 1995 have totaled over $372 million.

2. Benign Emissions

Interface identified and inventoried 247 air emissions stacks and 19 waste water effluent pipes at their manufacturing locations.

2. Benign Emissions

Net absolute greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 82% from our 1996 baseline. 33% from improved efficiencies, process changes, and direct

renewable energy purchases.

3. Renewable Energies

The third front, Renewable Energy, means eventually harnessing solar energy Harnessing renewable energy will attack numerous unwanted linkages, both to the lithosphere and to the biosphere, and will allow closed loop recycling

Total energy used at carpet manufacturing facilities (per unit of product) is down 45% since 1996.

Use of renewable energy increased to 27% in 2007.

4. Closing cycles

Two cycles are introduced: a natural, organic cycle, emphasizing natural raw materials and compostable products ("dust to dust") a technical cycle, giving man-made materials and precious organic molecules life after life, through closed loop recycling.

4. Closing cycles

ReEntry program has diverted 133 million pounds of material from landfills between 1995 and 2007.

4. Closing cycles

The percentage of recycled and bio-based materials used to manufacture our products worldwide has increased from 0.5% in 1996 to 25% in 2007.

4. Closing cycles

Water intake per production unit is down 45% in broadloom facilities from 1996 due to conservation efforts and process changes.

4. Closing cycles

Water intake per production unit is down 75% in modular carpet facilities from 1996 due to conservation efforts and process changes.

5. Efficient resources/goods transport

We can: • videoconference to avoid the

unnecessary trip for a meeting.• drive the most efficient

automobiles available. • site our factories near the markets

they serve• plan logistics for maximum

efficiency

6. Sensitivity Hookup

• service to the community through involvement and investment in the community (especially in education),

• closer relations among ourselves (inside the circle) to get all of us in alignment, and with suppliers and customers.

to reduce the frequency of injuries by almost 63% since 1999.

7. Redesign of commerce

Redesigning commerce probably hinges, more than anything else, on the acceptance of entirely new notions of economics, especially prices that reflect full costs.

It means shifting emphasis from simply selling products to providing services

Relationships based on delivering, via leasing agreements, the services our products provide, in lieu of the products themselves

7. Redesign of commerceOther examples:Photocopies:

Elevator:

We can go farther:

In ICT: You can buy hours of word editor instead of hardware and software.In civil engineering: you can provide the service: connection between two places instead of roads. The enterprise is responsible for maintenance, in case of interruption enterprise is fined.

Schindler, Sells vertical transport maintenance free instead of elevators

Xerox: Sells copy services instead of copy machines.

• service oriented

• resource-efficient

• wasting nothing

• solar driven

• cyclical (no longer take-make-waste linear)

• strongly connected to stakeholders: communities (building social equity), customers, and suppliers—and to one another.

• Our communities are stronger and better educated

Redefine engineering culture away from ‘Building things’ to ‘meeting needs sustainably’?

I built all this!

I didn’t needto build

anything new!

Providing and Refurbishing the minimum to meet society’s needs

Visible construction, at great public expense, to meet society’s wants

The 19th (& 20th?) Century Engineer The 21st Century Engineer

Environment -‘inevitable’

Engineers provide the interfaces...

Society - instinctive?Society - instinctive?

• Becoming sustainable requires leaders who recognisethis world view, and act accordingly.

InfrastructureInfrastructure

ProductsProducts

Economy- invented!Economy- invented!

Professor Jordi SegalasTechnology and Sustainable DevelopmentPolytechnic University of CataloniaBarcelona, SPAIN

Thank you for your attention!

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