Engineering role in sustainability

Engineering role in sustainability

Jordi Segalàs

Institute of Sustainability

Barcelona Tech University

Which role can engineering play in sustainable development?

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

Aff

luen

ce

Technology

Luxury

Quality

Needs

No net impact High impact In - between

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)

What do you think? -

• 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

• 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

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 commerce Other 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.

Redefine engineering culture away from

‘Building things’ to ‘meeting needs sustainably’?

I built all

this!

I didn’t need to 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?

• Becoming

sustainable

requires leaders

who recognise

this world view,

and act

accordingly.

Infrastructure

Products

Economy

- invented!

Professor Jordi Segalas

Institute of Sustainability

Barcelona Tech unviersity

Barcelona, Catalunya

Thank you for your attention!