The Status of Sustainable Engineering

William A. Wallace

SUBMITTED TEXT (transcript of talk)

Many of the thought leaders in sustainable development have identified poor design as the root cause of non-sustainability in our industrial systems and infrastructure. For engineers, the designers of the built environment, this is a crucial problem.

1. A Design Problem
2. Forces driving sustainability
3. Sustainability as a competitive strategy
4. Status of sustainable engineering in World 1 countries
5. Client activities in the public sector
6. Client activities in the private sector
7. Call to action

This remarkably strong economy and quality of life has been built upon a complex set of technological, industrial and municipal infrastructures that are, perhaps, the most productive in the world. Because of the work of engineers, we find and extract raw materials more cheaply than ever before. We also move these materials efficiently through many interconnected modes of transportation to efficient and productive manufacturing facilities. There they are converted and returned as parts or finished goods to be sold and used by consumers across the globe. Technological advances and their corresponding engineering applications have led to continuous improvements in the form of better-performing materials, more efficient extraction methods, and new, more effective production techniques.

But, these improvements come with a price. Over the past decades, we have learned that wastes and unwanted production byproducts often have serious detrimental effects on the environment. Responding to public concern and working within a complex framework of environmental laws and regulations, engineers continue to develop new technologies to cut air emissions, treat industrial and municipal wastewater, and clean up contaminated soils. Today we enjoy a noticeably cleaner environment thanks to advances in environmental technology, a substantial investment by business and government, and the efforts and creativity of engineers.

Yet in the face of these accomplishments and general prosperity, new problems are beginning to appear. Technological advances in environmental monitoring and assessment have revealed a whole new set of environmental problems ¾ serious problems that bring into question whether our quality of life is sustainable. Today, there is hard evidence that we are stressing and depleting our resources to such a degree that we are jeopardizing the survival of future generations. The Ogallala aquifer, used by cities and farmers in the mid-western U.S., is drying up. Seventy percent of coastal fishing areas of the world (including the Grand Banks off the coast of New England) are fully or over-exploited. Global warming caused by energy production, transportation, and other industrial activities, is expected to raise sea levels, and could devastate many coastal areas. Recent massive flooding in the U.S. and other parts of the world has been linked to deforestation and climate change, and the loss of ecological systems to new construction.

These problems are by-products of the production-consumption model (See Figure 1) of our industrial age, a "take-make-waste" model which draws freely on energy, materials and ecological resources under the assumption that they are limitless. And, as engineers, we help perpetuate this model. For the most part, our efforts are directed towards finding cheaper ways to extract more resources, not on ways to recycle or use less. Inner cities with their existing infrastructures are left to decay, while we claim more open lands, and add to our sprawl. We solve transportation gridlock by adding more highways instead of rethinking our transportation systems. We look for ways to access more of our limited water resources rather than for ways to reduce demand or recycle what we have.

Figure 1: Production-consumption model

1. A Design Problem

So far, we have treated these problems and associated incidents as the unintended consequences of an otherwise beneficial industrial system. In all cases, our response has been essentially to send in the repair crews (often the consulting engineers) to fix the problems and then get on with business as usual. Each time, the engineering community responded, first by devising technologies and methods to clean up the discharges and contamination, and then by devising ways to reduce or eliminate contaminants from the processes themselves. As a result, most of the direct contaminant discharges have been reduced substantially, leaving a noticeably cleaner environment.

Figure 2: What is our situation today? The range of debate over the state of resources, ecological damage.

But what if these problems were not just symptoms of a good system out of adjustment? What if these problems were symptoms of a fundamental design flaw? Taking a retrospective look at our industrial system, McDonough and Braungart place this matter in the context of a design problem.

"If someone were to present the Industrial Revolution as a retroactive design assignment, it might sound like this:

"Design a production system that

puts billions of pounds of toxic material into the air, water and soil every year

measures prosperity by activity, not legacy

requires thousands of complex regulations to keep people and natural systems from being poisoned too quickly

produces materials so dangerous that they will require constant vigilance from future generations

results in gigantic amounts of waste

puts valuable materials in holes all over the planet, where they can never be retrieved

erodes the diversity of biological species and cultural practices."

Things are about to get worse. Because of rapid economic growth, our world, especially the World 2 countries, is poised to expand its resource consumption rates by 5- to 10-fold in the next 35 years. And we’re on track to do so by extending the same linear, "take-make-waste" production-consumption model used in the industrialized world. In what is becoming a borderless world, companies can now produce and sell anything, anywhere, anytime. Seeing the advantage of scale economies, and lower labor and operating costs, companies are expanding their facilities into the developing countries.

Not surprisingly, these countries welcome this investment, and its attendant economic growth, jobs and overall improvement in their standard of living. The concern that this pathway is not sustainable is much less important than their drive for economic growth. Besides, they argue, how can the industrialized nations ask us to limit our growth and development to what can be achieved using sustainable technology? The industrialized nations got where they are today by exploiting their natural resources and the environment. If they want us to be sustainable, let them show by example and then give us the required technology.

2. Forces driving sustainability

These impending problems of growth and development at a global scale were first recognized in the 1980s. In 1987, a commission headed by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland issued a report, "Our Common Future", which, for the first time, linked environmental protection with world economic growth and development. Out of this work came the concept of sustainable development: that the production and consumption of goods and services and their concomitant environmental impacts must not exceed the carrying capacity of the environment. Stated more profoundly, sustainable development is "…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." This concept is powerful in that it shifts the growth vs. environmental protection debate from confrontation to cooperation, creating grounds for partnerships between business and government.

Following the Brundtland Commission report, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was convened in Rio de Janeiro. Known as the 1992 Earth Summit, 100 world leaders met to discuss the issues raised by the report, and to formulate a set of actions (AGENDA 21) intended to address the sustainable use of the world’s resources. One of the significant findings was that global environmental degradation is due primarily to the activities of industrialized (i.e., World 1) countries, that their production-consumption activities create enormous amounts of pollution and stress the ecological balance of the Earth.

Even before the Earth Summit, business was pursuing its own response to the Brundtland Commission report. In 1991, the International Chamber of Commerce developed the Business Charter for Sustainable Development, composed of 16 sustainable development principles to guide company strategy and operations. This document was endorsed by 600 companies. Shortly thereafter, CEOs of 50 major multi-national corporations organized the Business Council for Sustainable Development. In 1995, this organization merged and became the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Today WBCSD has over 130 member firms.

The engineering community also responded to the Brundtland Commission report by establishing in 1992 the World Engineering Partnership for Sustainable Development. Other engineering organizations issued policy statements supporting the sustainable development concept. Although these actions are commendable, critics point out that these policies for the most part ignored the social dimension of sustainable development.

3. Sustainability as a competitive strategy

Industry is recognizing that sustainability is an essential component of competitive strategy. Sustainable behavior is not just a good thing to do as long as money is available. For companies as well as states, provinces and municipalities, there are sound competitive reasons for incorporating sustainability into an overall business strategy. These are logically derived through a critical assessment of global trends and issues.

Rapid economic growth fueled by population growth and globalization. With the end of the Cold War, our world, especially the World 2 countries, is poised to dramatically expand its resource consumption (5- to 10-fold in the next 35 years). Trade barriers are dropping. Workers in these countries have new aspirations for a better quality of life, which unfortunately is interpreted as a high energy- and resource-intensive lifestyle.

Corresponding expansion of the extraction, production and transportation systems to meet demand. In response to an ever increasing demand for goods and services, we see the expansion of current "take-make-waste" production model in two directions: improved cost efficiencies of existing extraction, production and transport systems, and development of new extraction, production, transport technologies. Any risks associated with this expansion were not considered serious. And, at least up until now, any evidence of problems were mostly anecdotal. However, there is considerable historical evidence that technology will save the day, providing us with increased access to resources, higher production efficiencies, and/or material and product substitutes.

Growing awareness of the environmental and social consequences of economic growth and globalization. Thankfully, our ability to detect, assess and develop convincing arguments about the risk and damage to the environment and public health has improved greatly. Using satellite imaging, GPS and other broad scale detection and assessment tools, we can now do credible, broad-scale analyses of the state of our ecological resources. Here, information technology (IT) is the great enabler, making possible the communication, integration of information occurring across a wide range of scientific and engineering disciplines, providing a larger view of the situation. IT also permits easy, low-cost dissemination of information world wide, thereby enabling global collaboration among technical, political, social organizations. NGOs, citizen groups now have easy, low-cost access to this information.

Emergence of new, powerful stakeholders whose actions can affect a company's bottom line. Enabled through advances in IT and telecommunications, NGOs and citizen groups have gained considerable power and influence over the actions of corporations and government organizations alike. From its "Global Scenarios" project, the WBCSD notes that in the future, "…everyone will know everything about you all the time" The public views current government institutions as largely ineffective. Moreover, they possess new and viable alternatives for taking action. Using IT and telecommunications, they can deliver information world wide to a large constituency, quickly and at low cost. They can also take actions that can affect significantly a company’s bottom line. They are setting de facto standards for corporate environmental and social performance.

Emergence of credible industry voices with successful alternatives to business as usual. The old arguments that sustainable performance costs too much are no longer convincing. Companies such as DuPont, Intel, Dow, 3M, Monsanto, BP-Amoco and others are embracing sustainable development principles and they are making money. Hedstrom, Shopley and LeDuc identified a series of significant industry shifts toward sustainability.

Growth of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), an international organization with a membership of over 130 of the world’s largest companies.

Public commitment of major companies (including those named above) to the principles of sustainable development.

Establishment of financially-credible environmental rating firms and successful investment funds focused on companies that meet investor criteria for social and environmental responsibility.

Endorsement of sustainable development in the curricula of leading business schools.

4. Status of sustainable engineering in World 1 countries

Based on these marketplace forces, one would expect to see a corresponding increase in the market for engineering services to meet the needs of this expanding market in sustainable development. However today, sustainable engineering is substantially an unmet client need for both public and private sector clients. Although there are no regulatory programs to direct and enforce sustainable behavior, there are market forces at work (as noted above) that are inducing companies as well as municipalities to develop and publicize their commitment to sustainability. The market for outside sustainable engineering services as embryonic, with most of the services being provided by in-house engineering departments, or by architect firms designing "green" buildings and facilities. Management consulting firms are entering this market by leveraging their environmental management services and offering strategic advice on "greening" the company.

Ironically, engineering, the profession that can do the most for sustainable development, appears to be ill prepared or ill inclined to do so. While some engineering firms have created sustainable development practices, most have yet to define sustainability, establish performance standards, or assemble the requisite skills to meet client needs and deliver true progress towards sustainability. Sadly, projects are loaded up with environmental features and passed off as "sustainable," without any analysis of whether those features will, from a systems view, make any true contribution to sustainability. Additionally, some firms see the sub-elements of the sustainability movement (e.g., smart growth initiatives) as a threat to their business, and have actively sought to defeat such initiatives.

5. Client activities in the public sector

In the public sector, a growing number of cities are identifying themselves as "sustainable cities" and have developed their own indicators of sustainability. As a result of globalization, cities find themselves competing worldwide for industrial development and the requisite workforce. Here the basis of competition is quality of life. Companies looking to locate new facilities are making selections based on the balance of economic, environmental and social factors.

Local Sustainability, an information service sponsored by the European Union and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, has identified 130 cities and towns engaging in sustainable development initiatives. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has established a Sustainable Cities Programme, and has activities underway in China, Chile, Egypt, Ghana, India, Malawi, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Senegal, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia and Zanzibar.

In the U.S., a number of cities has established sustainability initiatives. For example, Austin, Texas has established the Sustainable Communities Initiative. It’s stated mission is to help the greater Austin region achieve economic prosperity, social justice, and ecological health - the highest possible quality of life in the best possible environment.

In Seattle, Washington, the citizen group called Sustainable Seattle in working to improve the region's long-term health and vitality--cultural, economic, environmental and social. Their mission is to advocate for sustainability in Seattle/King County. They published Indicators of Sustainable Community 1998, a 78-page document that tracks 40 different indicators of cultural, economic, environmental, and social health. This is the third indicators report since 1993. Previous editions won international awards and inspired communities both in the United States and around the world.

States too are incorporating sustainability into their programs for environmental management. In 1999, the Western Governors’ Association established a set of principles to guide natural resource and environmental policy development and decision-making in the West. Called Enlibra, these eight principles encompass all of the aspects of sustainable development, economic, environmental and social. To date these principles have used as a framework for solving difficult environmental problems that cross state boundaries and involve many contentious stakeholders.

6. Client activities in the private sector

For the private sector, many companies are finding that incorporation of a sustainability strategy makes good business sense. Based on the global trends noted above, these companies are realizing, that in effect, the public gives them their license to operate, a license that can be revoked at any time. As a result, they have made public commitments to abide by sustainability principles. Furthermore, many have shifted their focus to new sustainable markets. For example, BP-Amoco and Shell have publicly stated their concerns over global warming and are actively moving into solar and other forms of renewable energy. Further, BP-Amoco has an ongoing in-house carbon trading system, created to reduce carbon emissions and to prepare them for the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. DuPont and Monsanto are developing new businesses in the bio-sciences. In a new joint venture, Dow and Cargill have developed processes to produce carbohydrate-based plastics (using corn).

Clearly, not all companies are engaged in sustainable development practices. But companies that are engaged usually have two distinguishing characteristics: (1) they are in a sector in which industry practices are viewed as non-sustainable (e.g., mining, forest products, chemicals, petroleum), and (2) they have a leader willing to lead and champion a company-wide shift towards sustainability (e.g., Ray Anderson of Interface, Robert Shapiro of Monsanto).

7. Call to action

Today, the engineering community is uniquely positioned to provide leadership for the good of our respective nations as well as the rest of the world. Not only do engineers possess the predictive tools to see these impending problems, they also possess the technological tools and creativity to help solve them. It seems we have two choices. The first choice is to do what we have always done: tinker with the current production-consumption model hoping to make incremental changes while navigating from crisis to crisis. This choice may lead to short term profits, but has the risk of being cast as part of the problem, not the solution. The second and far better choice is to use our vision and tools to provide leadership out of this impending crisis and into a new industrial age of sustainable development.

To lead, the engineering community must take on five tasks:

Communicate the business case for sustainable development. Often, sustainable development is portrayed as a noble cause without much practical application. Corporate CEOs, faced with increasing competition, cost pressures and a rapidly changing business environment, need solid proof that becoming sustainable will help their companies survive and be profitable. There is a strong business case for sustainable development. It needs to be communicated.

Develop technologies that foster sustainable growth while maintaining and enhancing quality of life. Sustainable development is a string of design problems: How do you produce products and services that use fewer critical resources, release fewer contaminants, contain less toxics, and can be recycled, but offer the same quality at an equal or lower cost? Clearly these are complex and difficult problems. At the same time, these are invigorating problems that stretch our thinking and create whole new markets and technical disciplines. They are also the kind of problems that excite and attract our young engineers.

Become leaders as well as doers. Our vision and tools put us in a unique position to lead the way into a new industrial age. To do so we must become part of the policy making process. Unfortunately, most engineers are not comfortable working in this arena.

Teach others about the problems with our current production-consumption model and the concepts of sustainable development. To reset our course toward sustainability, we need to develop simple messages that explain the rationale behind sustainable development and the need for action. On a global scale this problem is daunting. How do you teach a world composed of a myriad of political boundaries, religions, value systems and levels of economic development how to work together to manage the global commons?

Learn more about the impending problems of non-sustainable behavior and the requisite technologies needed to solve them. Although the negative effects of the current production-consumption model are becoming more evident, we still have a lot to learn about the current state of our resources and ecological systems. At the same time, we need to learn how to gauge our progress towards sustainability, and begin to develop the technologies needed to move forward.