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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
ENGINEERING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AN AUTHORITATIVE AND COMPLETE GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ENGINEERING In Engineering for Sustainable Development: Theory and Practice, a team of distinguished academics deliver a comprehensive, education-focused discussion on sustainable engineering, bridging the gap between theory and practice by drawing upon illuminating case studies and the latest cutting-edge research. In the book, readers will find an introduction to the sustainable development agenda and sustainable technology development, as well as practical methods and tools for the development and implementation of sustainable engineering solutions. The book highlights the critical role of engineers and the engineering profession in providing sustainability leadership as well as important future-focused solutions to support engineering global sustainable development. The book offers a wide range of civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering industry applications. Readers will also benefit from: * A thorough introduction to contemporary sustainability challenges in the engineering discipline * Comprehensive discussions of sustainability assessment tools, including triple bottom line assessment (TBL) and the environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) * In-depth examinations of sustainable engineering strategies, including cleaner production and eco-efficiency methods and environmental management systems * Detailed review of green engineering principles and industrial symbiosis in engineering application. * A link between product stewardship and the design for the environment Perfect for graduate and senior undergraduate students in any engineering discipline, Engineering for Sustainable Development: Theory and Practice will also earn a place in the libraries of consultants and engineers in industry and government with a personal or professional interest in sustainability management.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Part I: Challenges in Sustainable Engineering
1 Sustainability Challenges
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Weak Sustainability vs Strong Sustainability
1.3 Utility vs Throughput
1.4 Relative Scarcity vs Absolute Scarcity
1.5 Global/International Sustainability Agenda
1.6 Engineering Sustainability
1.7 IPAT
1.8 Environmental Kuznets Curves
1.9 Impact of Engineering Innovation on Earth's Carrying Capacity
1.10 Engineering Challenges in Reducing Ecological Footprint
1.11 Sustainability Implications of Engineering Design
1.12 Engineering Catastrophes
1.13 Existential Risks from Engineering Activities in the Twenty‐First Century
1.14 The Way Forward
References
Part II: Sustainability Assessment Tools
2 Quantifying Sustainability – Triple Bottom Line Assessment
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Triple Bottom Line
2.3 Characteristics of Indicators
2.4 How Do You Develop an Indicator?
2.5 Selection of Indicators
2.6 Participatory Approaches in Indicator Development
2.7 Description of Steps for Indicator Development
2.8 Sustainability Assessment Framework
2.9 TBL Assessment for Bench Marking Purposes
2.10 Conclusions
References
3 Life Cycle Assessment for TBL Assessment – I
3.1 Life Cycle Thinking
3.2 Life Cycle Assessment
3.3 Environmental Life Cycle Assessment
3.4 Allocation Method
3.5 Type of LCA
3.6 Uncertainty Analysis in LCA
3.7 Environmental Product Declaration
References
4 Economic and Social Life Cycle Assessment
4.1 Economic and Social Life Cycle Assessment
4.2 Life Cycle Costing
4.3 Social Life Cycle Assessment
4.4 Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
References
Part III: Sustainable Engineering Solutions
5 Sustainable Engineering Strategies
5.1 Engineering Strategies for Sustainable Development
5.2 Cleaner Production Strategies
5.3 Fuji Xerox Case Study – Integration of Five CPS
5.4 Business Case Benefits of Cleaner Production
5.5 Cleaner Production Assessment
5.6 Eco‐efficiency
5.7 Environmental Management Systems
5.8 Conclusions
References
6 Industrial Ecology
6.1 What Is Industrial Ecology?
6.2 Application of Industrial Ecology
6.3 Regional Synergies/Industrial Symbiosis
6.4 How Does It Happen?
6.5 Types of Industrial Symbiosis
6.6 Challenges in By‐Product Reuse
6.7 What Is an Eco Industrial Park?
6.8 Practice Examples
6.9 Industrial Symbiosis in Kwinana Industrial Area
References
7 Green Engineering
7.1 What Is Green Engineering?
7.2 Principles of Green Engineering
7.3 Application of Green Engineering
References
8 Design for the Environment
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Design for the Environment
8.3 Benefits of Design for the Environment
8.4 Challenges Associated with Design for the Environment
8.5 Life Cycle Design Guidelines
8.6 Practice Examples
8.7 Zero Waste
8.8 Circular Economy
8.9 Extended Producer Responsibilities
References
9 Sustainable Energy
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Energy, Environment, Economy, and Society
9.3 Sustainable Energy
9.4 Pathways Forward
9.5 Practice Example
9.6 Life Cycle Energy Assessment
9.7 Reference Energy System
9.8 Conclusions
References
Part IV: Outcomes
10 Engineering for Sustainable Development
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Sustainable Production and Consumption
10.3 Factor X
10.4 Climate Change Challenges
10.5 Water Challenges
10.6 Energy Challenges
10.7 Circular Economy and Dematerialisation
10.8 Engineering Ethics
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 1
Table 1.1 Approaches for addressing sustainability
Table 1.2 Difference between weak and strong sustainability
Table 1.3 Example of successful engineering solutions to achieve SDGs
Chapter 2
Table 2.1 Scores provided by experts to calculate
W
j
,
W
Total
, and
W
′
j
Table 2.2 Calculated values of scores for PMs, KPIs, HPIs, and sustainabili...
Table 2.3 Comparison of TBL intensities for cascade soft drinks and the ave...
Chapter 3
Table 3.1 Conversion of LCI data into GHG emissions.
Table 3.2 Emission factors of inputs.
Table 3.3 Gases of different impacts.
Table 3.4 Emissions from inputs.
Table 3.5 Emissions characterisation.
Table 3.6 Uncertainty analysis results using Monte Carlo simulation (FU = 1...
Table 3.7 Parameters, normalisation factors and weightings for calculation ...
Chapter 4
Table 4.1 Weighting process (Manik et al. 2013).
Table 4.2 Calculation of weights of social impact categories.
Table 4.3 Determination of gaps.
Chapter 5
Table 5.1 Format for calculating incremental operational benefit.
Table 5.2 Implementation plan.
Table 5.3 Conversion of impacts to inhabitant equivalent [Inh].
Table 5.4 Calculation of initial portfolio (PP) positions of concrete mixes...
Table 5.5 Calculation of final portfolio positions (PP′).
Chapter 6
Table 6.1 Inorganic by‐products reuse in Australia.
Chapter 8
Table 8.1 Material scarcity in near future (Ragnarsdóttir and Sverdrup 2015...
Table 8.2 Information on office equipment.
Table 8.3 Emission factors for inputs for a new compressor production.
Table 8.4 Emission factors for inputs for remanufactured compressor product...
Table 8.5 Material factors.
Table 8.6 Material factors of LCI inputs.
Table 8.7 Material intensity per appliance.
Table 8.8 MIPS of water and air of carpet cleaners.
Chapter 9
Table 9.1 Environmental impacts of electricity generation from fossil fuel ...
Table 9.2 Performance characteristics of energy storage technologies.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Weak (a) and strong (b) sustainability.
Figure 1.2 Engineers' challenge to combat climate change
Figure 1.3 Environmental Kuznets curve
Figure 1.4 Carrying capacity scenarios
Figure 1.5 Achieving eco‐efficiency using preventative approaches
Figure 1.6 Structure of the book for addressing engineering sustainability c...
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Spider diagram
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 Steps of life cycle assessment. Source: Permission to reproduce e...
Figure 3.2 Relation between LCI, midpoints, and endpoints.
Figure 3.3 Developing an inventory using mass balance.
Figure 3.4 Breakdown of GHG emissions in terms of stages.
Figure 3.5 Pie chart showing the GHG hotspot.
Figure 3.6 Histogram from MCS calculations (1000 runs) of the carbon footpri...
Figure 3.7 Development and deployment of an Environmental Product Declaratio...
Figure 3.8 Scope of declaration in EPDs: cradle to gate A1, A2, and A3.
Figure 3.9 Eco‐points of concrete ready mix C40. Source: Biswas et al. (2017...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Rader chart of social impacts.
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 Basic principles of cleaner production strategies.
Figure 5.2 Steps for conducting cleaner production assessment (UNEP 2015).
Figure 5.3 Cause diagnosis.
Figure 5.4 Option generation.
Figure 5.5 Delinking welfare from the use of nature.
Figure 5.6 Example eco‐efficiency analysis portfolio. Source: Arceo et al. (...
Figure 5.7 Eco‐efficiency portfolio positions for 4 concrete mixes.
Figure 5.8 Direct and indirect stakeholders in the EMS development process....
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Spatial levels of industrial ecology.
Figure 6.2 Mimicking a natural ecosystem to develop an industrial system.
Figure 6.3 Iconic synergy project – KWRP.
Figure 6.4 Conversion of NO
x
emission to feedstock for fertiliser production...
Figure 6.5 Gaseous symbiosis between fertiliser and refinery industries.
Figure 6.6 EIP in Kalundborg.
Figure 6.7 Location of companies and defined clusters in the Kwinana Industr...
Figure 6.8 An example of an EIP.
Figure 6.9 Industrial symbiosis in an industrial area.
Figure 6.10 Increase in IS in Kwinana.
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 Process intensification: SEWGS case.
Figure 7.2 The E‐factor.
Figure 7.3 Atom efficiency.
Figure 7.4 Concrete bricks vs clay bricks.
Figure 7.5 Classification of waste heat in terms of temperature.
Figure 7.6 Dairy farm utilising a heat pump to transfer heat for use elsewhe...
Figure 7.7 Combined cycle power plant.
Figure 7.8 Organic Rankine cycle.
Figure 7.9 Kalina cycle.
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 Production system.
Figure 8.2 Life cycle inventory of a remanufactured compressor.
Figure 8.3 Engineering strategies for reducing circular gap.
Figure 8.4 Swiss EPR model.
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Energy use per capita vs GDP per capita.
Figure 9.2 World energy mix, 2010–2050 (USEIA 2021a).
Figure 9.3 Different types of storage systems
Figure 9.4 Flywheel storage system (Amiryar and Pullen 2020)
Figure 9.5 Pumped storage system
Figure 9.6 Typical daily solar generation curve and load curve (South Austra...
Figure 9.7 CASIO Duck curve
Figure 9.8 Use of blockchain use in a decentralised electricity system.
Figure 9.9 Cascade energy recovery
Figure 9.10 Economic and environmental implications of CCS
Figure 9.11 Demand side management for power sector emission reduction
Figure 9.12 Energy flow from mining to end uses
Figure 9.13 Reference energy system
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Overshoot day (Global Footprint Network 2021).
Figure 10.2 Relationship between global atmospheric CO
2
and surface temperat...
Figure 10.3 Relationship between population, energy, and CO
2
emissions.
Figure 10.4 Net Zero by 2050, IEA, Paris.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Begin Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
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Engineering for Sustainable Development
Theory and Practice
Wahidul K. Biswas and Michele JohnSustainable Engineering Group, School of Civil and Mechanical EngineeringCurtin UniversityPerth, Australia
This edition first published 2023© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data applied for:
Hardback: 9781119720980
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Pavel Chagochkin/Shutterstock
Dedicated to my late fatherProfessor Mozibur Rahman Biswas, PhD (Texas A&M University)31/10/1939 – 06/07/2020
Though you never got to see this,You're in every page.
Preface
Engineering for sustainable development brings both hope and challenges for the twenty‐first century.
The latest IPCC (2021) Report states that global surface temperatures will continue to increase under all emission scenarios until at least the mid‐century. It is clear that global warming of 1.5–2 °C will be exceeded during the twenty‐first century unless significant reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are made in the next few decades.
What does this mean for the engineering profession? It means that the technologies, material choices, and engineering designs will all face increasing pressures to improve energy efficiency, to move towards only renewable energy, reduce embodied energy and material intensity in engineering products and services, and consider reducing end‐of‐life waste management issues through improved design, resource recovery, and remanufacturing. It also will mean that the engineering profession will need to seriously consider the stewardship and corporate social responsibilities of living in a world destined for 9 billion people by mid‐century and all the attendant pressures of a warming climate, increased population density in our major cities, and the constant trade‐offs between increased economic growth and the conservation of global resources and the natural environment.
All these challenges are grounded in engineering decision‐making. As highlighted by the Natural Edge Project (2002–2006), 70% of modern sustainability challenges fundamentally involve engineering decision‐making.
Engineering covers a wide variety of industry applications, manufacturing sectors, consumer good production, and housing and energy systems. Engineers were central to the seventeenth century Industrial Revolution which catalysed the intensive production systems previous century have benefited from in terms of improved health, higher living standards and phenomenal global economic growth and technological development. We have the engineering profession to thank for this.
On the other side of the same coin, we have seen two centuries of significant carbon emissions resulting in global warming from fossil fuel consumption, we have large‐scale clearing of vast tractions of global vegetation in the race for increased agricultural production and urban development and in doing so we have simply relied on the benefits of the attendant economic growth to justify our voracious need for expansion, market domination, and profitability. The yardsticks for the success of such achievements were largely measured through increased profits, shareholder return, and/or technological development.
However the tide is now turning. Climate pressures and a long winded global policy discussion on carbon mitigation, increasing environmental and marine degradation, extended periods of drought and water shortages and global resource issues such as critical metal availability are now raising questions that the engineering profession have not really had to previously seriously consider.
Our world is changing and will provide many new challenges for the twenty‐first century engineer.
This book is about that very challenge. As we engineer a future of sustainable development, what is the role of the engineering in helping to mitigate, adapt, and add resilience to the climate, resource, and stewardship challenges that governments, community, and the younger generation will expect from the profession in coming decades? Zero carbon production, 100% renewable energy, circular economy use of product waste and resource recovery, mandatory sustainability assessments that perhaps blockchain instruments will audit on our behalf and increasing pressures on any associated negative impact on the community and the environment. Welcome to Engineering for Sustainable Development. The challenge is ours. The responsibility is ours.
The authors thank Dr Gordon Ingram of Chemical Engineering Department of Curtin University for his careful review of some chapters of this book.
July 2022
Wahidul K. Biswas and Michele John
Part IChallenges in Sustainable Engineering
1Sustainability Challenges
1.1 Introduction
Sustainability is the goal or endpoint of a process known as (ecologically) sustainable development. Sustainable development consists of a large number of pathways to reach this endpoint that sees a balance between the provision of ecosystem services, and human access to natural resources to meet the basic needs of life. Engineering sustainability challenges are focused on managing this challenge and coming up with innovative technological solutions to help sustain the earth, given the fact that the earth's existing resources will be inadequate in meeting the demands of future estimated population growth. The latest data from the global footprint network suggests that the humanity used an equivalent of 1.7 earths in 2016 (Vandermaesen et al. 2019), while the United Nations predicted that the global population will increase from 7.7 billion in 2019 to 11.2 billion by the end of this century (United Nations 2020). At the rate at which we consume the earth resources, future generations will require approximately (1.7 × 11.2/7.7) or 2.4 planets to provide equivalent resources by the end of this century. However, we only have one planet.
Worldwide human population growth has been supported by the industrial revolution and the invention of steam engine in the eighteenth century and mass production. This industrial revolution gave birth to our modern civilization and systematically improved living standards resulting in a population explosion from 0.5 to 7.7 billion only over 253 years (1776–2019) (Cilluffo and Ruiz 2019). The exploitation of minerals, fuels, biomass, and rocks for transport, agriculture, building, and manufacturing increased rapidly during this time to deliver the goods and services necessary to support the growth of modern civilization. Technologies have advanced over these years significantly to exploit rare‐earth materials and scarce resources to meet the growing demand of an increasing population and to run the modern economy. The scarcity of important materials that are limited resources is only now being understood (Whittingham 2011).
Humanity currently thus uses resources 1.75 times faster than they can be regenerated by nature or provided by our planet (GFN 2019). Apart from population growth, factors which are causing the rapid decline of the earth's resources are our increased dependences on non‐renewable resources, energy and material intensive technologies, and uncontrolled production and consumption. Global demand for materials has increased 10‐fold since the beginning of the twentieth century and is set to double again by 2030, compared with 2010 (European Commission 2020). Resource producers have been increasingly able to deploy a range of technological options in their operations, even mining and drilling in places that were once inaccessible, increasing the efficiency of extraction techniques, switching to predictive maintenance, and using sophisticated modelling tools to identify, extract, and manage resources. The major emphasis has been on economic growth to meet the demands of a growing population, technological progress based on throughput‐increasing (or resource exploitation) without consideration of the bio‐physical limits of our non‐renewable resources (e.g. coal, gas, ore, rocks). These resources require hundreds of thousands of years to form below the earth, and it raises questions as to what will happen to future generations when all finite non‐renewable resources are exhausted due to uncontrolled production and consumption. In addition to the exponential growth of resource use, technology that is used for converting earth resources to products (e.g. construction, automobiles, electronic items) and services (e.g. electricity, internet, transportation, communication system, water supply) to meet our growing demands have resulted in emissions of global warming gases (mainly CO2). The consequence of global warming includes flooding, increased bushfire, and the destruction of ecosystems. By 2050, between 70% and 80% of all people are expected to live in urban areas (United Nation 2018), which are resource intensive and artificial environments made by man, to further improve living standards. The engineering challenge is to minimise land use and conserve resources whilst meeting the demands of the world population through energy efficient buildings, water conservation, compact cities, and efficient transportation systems in our built environment.
Population control, rapid technological innovation, and behavioural change are also required to enhance resource efficiency. It is now crucial for the present generation to change their behaviour and mindsets, which will enable them to sustain adequate resources for future generations (inter‐generational equity). According to the Brundtland report (1987), ‘Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The widely used Brundtland's definition on sustainable development, was published in ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987.
While population density of developed nations is far less than that of developing nations, overconsumption by the former has already exceeded their bio‐capacity resulting in their need to source resources from developing nations. The UN Development Program reports that the richest 20% of the world's population consume 86% of the world's resources while the poorest 80% consume just 14% (UN 1999). This highlights the intra‐generational social equity aspects of sustainability and the increased gap between rich and poor people. The rapid progress in technology has fuelled this social inequality. According to David Grusky, Director of Stanford's Center on Poverty and Inequality, ‘One of the largest and most prominent debates in social sciences is the role of technology in inequality’ (Rotman 2014). The biggest social inequity is that the technology‐driven economy greatly favours a small group of people by amplifying their inherent skills and wealth. Human capital being continuously replaced with man‐made capital (e.g. self‐service cash register, food processors) has increased unemployment. Increased unemployment on the other hand increased social problems, such as poverty, crime, corruption, and domestic violence.
Secondly, technologies have not only enabled wealthy nations to control world resources but have also increased the overconsumption (luxurious pollutions), which is responsible for further environmental degradation. Poverty in a poor nation that causes environmental degradation is known as the pollution for the survival. For example, many children in developing nations are sent outside to collect low grade fuels like leaves and twigs as their parents cannot afford to purchase high quality fuel like gas or wood. Therefore, their children do not go to school spending the whole day gathering fuels to meet the daily cooking energy demand. The collection of low grade fuels not only affects the children's education but also causes ecological imbalance by depriving soil from nutrient rich organic matter.
Thirdly, sea level rise (SLR) due to global warming will affect a large portion of land of developing nations in densely populated countries in the Asia Pacific region.
Planned obsolescence of business strategy in recent times have made technologies obsolete, unfashionable or no longer usable before their natural end of life (EoL), which has created unsustainable consumption. For at least half a century, the mainstream fashion industry has purposely produced goods of inferior quality to increase sales to gain short term financial benefits. In essence, it means that a company is deliberately designing and manufacturing products with a shorter life span, by making them non‐functional or unfashionable earlier than necessary and increasing the waste sink if these items are not designed for disassembly or reuse or remanufacturing.
Addressing inter‐ and intra‐generational social inequities requires a reduction in the investment in unnecessary luxury items, controlled economic growth, sustainable behaviour and life style changes, and to design technology/products for repurposing and dematerialisation (e.g. accessing materials online reduced to need of hard copies, virtual conferences reduce travelling). A paradigm shift is urgently necessary to switch from resource intensive technologies that are currently being used (e.g. power plant, car, infrastructure) to more resource saving technologies (e.g. replacing a new engine with a remanufactured engine, super light car with reduced fuel consumption reduces long run costs and emissions). Secondly, it is important to encourage the technological race to enhance both inter‐ and intra‐generational social equity. More dependence on technology means we need more energy and material resources to produce, operate, and maintain them in an increasingly resources scarce world. We need to achieve a balance between technology and human capital for enhancing intra‐generational social equity while maintaining economic growth. In a nut shell, social equity means ‘equal opportunity of access to basic needs’ for all people on earth.
Innovative technological design for converting EoL product to new product will reduce land, energy, and the material consumption associated with virgin material consumption. We need planning and management of sourcing, procurement, conversion, and logistics activities involved during pre‐manufacturing, manufacturing, use, and post‐use stages in the product life cycle. For example, Renault is a remanufacturing company which requires more labour for remanufacturing gearboxes than making new ones, but there is still a net profit because no capital expenses are required for machinery, and no cutting and machining of the products, resulting in no waste and a better materials yield (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2014), enhancing both inter‐ and intra‐generational equity by creating jobs and by importantly conserving virgin resources for future generations.
1.2 Weak Sustainability vs Strong Sustainability
There are many different approaches to achieve sustainability, which may result in either ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ sustainability outcomes. The core ideas that are widely discussed in the literature such as engineering innovation should not only consider conservation of resources for future generations but also the technology needs to be designed to enhance social well‐being (Table 1.1). Secondly, achieving social, economic, and environmental performance in a product or delivering a service to a particular sector could result in unplanned adverse consequences. The weak definition of sustainability illustrated in the interlocking diagram (Figure 1.1a) allows the trade‐off between sectors, and does not take into account carrying capacity or the resource limitations of earth. The first priority for living within the world's carrying capacity is to achieve a strong definition of sustainability, as represented by the nested egg diagram (Figure 1.2b). Societal demand should consider inter‐ and intra‐generational social equity issues within ecological limits or finite resources levels. Engineering design and innovation must make sure to address social needs while using resources within the earth's carrying capacity and not exploit resources beyond the earth's carrying capacity.
Table 1.1 Approaches for addressing sustainability
Core idea
Comments and related concepts
Meeting needs of present without compromising needs of future
Can be thought of as over‐riding
Includes ‘intergenerational equity’, ‘intergenerational discounting’, recognition of ecological limits
Harmonising/integrating social, economic and environmental objectives
Can tend towards ‘weak’ sustainability (assumes assets in one sector can be traded off against others)
Includes ‘triple bottom line’
Living within the world's carrying capacity
Tends to be associated with ‘strong’ sustainability (ecological assets cannot be traded off beyond a certain point)
Includes ‘ecological footprint’
Figure 1.1 Weak (a) and strong (b) sustainability.
Source: Modified from Lim et al. (2015)
Figure 1.2 Engineers' challenge to combat climate change
The difference between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ definitions of sustainability as shown in Table 1.2 highlights the factors that need to be taken into account to achieve strong sustainability. As it appears in Table 1.2, weak sustainability focuses on economic growth, pollution control rather than pollution prevention, ignores the earth resources limits and the risks associated with technological development, and ignores the fact that exponential growth is taking place in a world. On the hand, ‘strong sustainability’ focuses on pollution prevention instead of pollution control, considers the ecological or bio‐physical limits of earths resources, and takes into consideration of consequences that may be resulted from human activities and technological development.
Table 1.2 Difference between weak and strong sustainability
Source: Adapted from Diesendorf (2001)
‘Weak’ sustainability
‘Strong’ sustainability
‘Brown’ agenda – pollution focus
‘Green’ agenda – focus on resilience of ecosystems
Environmental focus
Ecological focus
Degradation of one group of assets can be compensated by improvement in another
Not a balancing act, but an integrating act
Interlocking circles
Nested egg diagram
Evolutionary change required
Radical change required
Starts with economic imperatives
Starts with ecological imperatives
‘Weak’ sustainability
‘Strong’ sustainability
Can be accommodated within the traditional economic paradigm
Challenges the traditional economic paradigm
Downplays risk and uncertainty, although consistent with the precautionary principle
Highlights risk and uncertainty Identifies the need for better modelling of systems, while recognising full understanding unlikely
Favours ‘pressure‐state‐response’ model (linking cause and effect) for developing indicators
Argues that ‘pressure‐state‐response’ model oversimplifies dynamics of complex ecological (or social) systems
1.3 Utility vs Throughput
Current engineering practice mainly meets the human needs of the current generation by providing utility services including energy, infrastructure, electronics, transportation, water, food processing, etc. At the same time, they also need to consider ‘throughput’ in their engineering design process. The throughput is the flow of raw materials and energy from the global ecosystem's sources of low entropy (mines, wells, fisheries, croplands) through the economy, and back to the global ecosystem's sinks for high entropy wastes (atmosphere, oceans, dumps). Engineers need to make sure that more utility is provided per unit of throughput (e.g. more MWh of electricity per unit of throughput consisting of mining, processing, transportation, and the combustion of fossil fuel; building of a 400 m2 house with reduced level of quarrying, crashing, construction activities and the use of virgin materials).
Utility ignores the bio‐physical limit of earth resources. This utility should be non‐declining for future generations as the future should be at least as better off as the present in terms of its utility or happiness. On the other hand, physical throughput is also to be non‐declining (Daly 2002) meaning that the capacity of the ecosystem to sustain the flows of food, fuel, minerals, water are not to be exhausted. The use of energy and material efficiency and all Rs (recycle, reuse, reduce, remanufacturing, redesign, recovery) can increase utility per unit of throughput, thus leaving adequate natural resources for future generations.
Natural capital (i.e. clean air, water and non‐contaminated or non‐toxic soil) is to be maintained and it is the capacity of the ecosystem to yield both a flow of natural resources and a flux of natural services (i.e. grains for food, water for drinking, irrigation). Maintaining natural capital constant is often referred to as ‘strong sustainability’ in distinction to ‘weak sustainability’ in which some natural resources are lost due to manmade capital (i.e. converting forest to an industrial area). Ecological limits are rapidly converting economic growth into uneconomic growth – i.e. throughput growth that increases costs by more than it increases benefits, thus making most of us as well as future generation poorer (Daly 2002). For example, climate change resulting from the GHG emissions from human activities to run the modern economy have already caused uneconomic consequences such as bushfire, SLR, drought, and the extinction of species. Uncontrolled growth without considering engineering innovation for resource conservation cannot possibly increase everyone's relative income as few people tend to control most of world resources. Use of increasingly finite, yet unowned ecosystem services (e.g. soil, water, forest) by few imposes opportunity costs on future generations. For example, rapid conversion of forest to cropland in Western Australia increased the mixing of rainwater with salty water in deep aquifers due to the fact that the roots of crops are not long enough like deep rooted perennial species to reach deeper aquifers. Consequently, saline water table rise and affect the cultivation of crops. This is an opportunity cost for future generations as they will not be able to use this salt degraded land for crop production. More hard evidence of over exploitation is in the mining industry where the ore grade in some mining operations has begun to decline resulting in increased energy consumption and costs, particularly with the extraction of small amount of minerals from a large amount of ore. This is not only making the mineral processing expensive but it is also causing a high level of land degradation, water pollution, and the loss of biodiversity.
1.4 Relative Scarcity vs Absolute Scarcity
Cleveland and Stern (1998) defined resource scarcity as the extent to which human well‐being is affected by the quality and availability of natural resource stocks. On this basis, relative scarcity can be considered to be the extent to which the quality and availability of a particular resource type impacts upon human well‐being relative to other resource types. Therefore, if the availability of a particular resource declines relative to other resources, then, its positive contribution to human well‐being comparatively declines and, as such, its relative scarcity increases and people may switch to other resources. For example, if gas is scarce or runs out, then we can go for oil and then when oil runs out, we can go for coal. This actually gradually increases the price of resources due to the increased demand with the rapid decline of these energy reservoirs on earth.
Relative scarcity does not take into consideration the bio‐physical limitations of non‐renewable finite resources. Ecological economists consider the difference between relative and absolute scarcity to be a critical. Absolute scarcity means that there is a bio‐physical limit of the resource. The consideration of absolute scarcity in the engineering design process should increase the use of renewable resources to address the scarcity associated with non‐renewable resources.
1.5 Global/International Sustainability Agenda
The global sustainability agenda is a list of tasks or actions, which vary from country to country, based on their respective socio‐economic and environmental sustainability goal. Sustainability is a global issue and it requires the participation of all nations across the globe to develop collaborative and collective action plans to manage earth resources in a socially equitable manner for both current and future generations. Pollution and GHG emissions and increased human refugee movement across country boundaries highlight the importance of conducting global sustainability management. Some popular slogans that established sustainable development as a global issue include:
Think globally and act locally – The conservation of finite resources locally could help enhance the security of indispensable resources like food, minerals, fuel globally. Also, the reduction of GHG emissions locally using renewable energy sources could help reduce global warming impacts.
Light tomorrow with today – Our combined effort and actions today or the use of environmental friendly and resource efficient technologies that can conserve resources and leave a better world for our future generations.
Some political events in recent decades have brought sustainable development firmly into the public arena, and established it as an accepted goal for international policy or decision makers. World Sustainable Development Summits brought together people from all walks of life, including nobel laureates, political leaders, decision makers from bilateral and multilateral institutions, business leaders, the diplomatic corps, engineers, scientists and researchers, media personnel, members of civil society and even celebrities; on a common platform to deliberate on issues related to environmental, social, and economic agendas for achieving sustainable futures.
The first Earth Summit on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 agreed on a global plan of action, known as Agenda 21, designed to deliver a more sustainable pattern of development. Agenda 21 focused on preparing the world for life in the twenty‐first century. Signed by 178 national governments, Agenda 21 provides a comprehensive plan of action to attain sustainable development at local, national, and global levels (UN 1992). The issues that were discussed in Agenda 21 report covered both inter‐ and intra‐generational equity issues, including uneven development, gender equity, poverty alleviation, and unsustainable consumption. Secondly, it focused on the impact of population growth and the need for developed nations to extend cooperation to developing nations to build local capacity building in addressing sustainability challenges. Finally, it discussed the need for research and innovation to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives of sustainability. Engineers can potentially address sustainability challenges by innovating socially equitable, accessible, resource efficient, and affordable technologies, utilising indigenous or local natural and human resources.
The target of next World Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg in 2002 was to eradicate poverty for developing nations and to attain sustainable consumption and production for developed nations (UN 2002). Engineers can design affordable technologies using indigenous resources to create income‐generating activities for poor people to meet the basic needs of life, while reducing environmental problems, like deforestation associated with the use of fuelwood and indoor air pollution from cooking with poor‐quality fuels. On the other hand, engineers can design products for disassembly so that the EoL product can be given a new life and consequently emissions, wastes generation and land use, and energy and material consumption associated with upstream activities (i.e. mining to material production) can be avoided and conserve resources for the future generations. For example, a remanufactured compressor (i.e. EoL compressor turned into a usable compressor) costs one‐third of the cost of a new compressor while offering the same durability or service life (Biswas and Rosano 2011).
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development – or Rio+20 – took place in 2012, 20 years after the first earth summit in Rio de Janeiro. World leaders decided to develop a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) built upon the millennium development goals. The purpose of these goals was to promote sustainable development in an organised, integrated, and global way. Nations agreed on exploring different measures of wealth other than gross domestic product (GDP) that also considers environmental and social factors. This was a clear attempt to achieve ecologically sustainable development taking into account the bio‐physical limits of earth resources. Standard neoclassical economics sees a tight coupling between GDP and welfare and a loose coupling between GDP and throughput or the flow of energy and materials from the global ecosystem (Daly and Farley 2004). Whereas ecological economics sees a tight coupling between GDP and throughput, with a loose coupling between GDP and welfare beyond basic sufficiency. Engineers play a pivotal role in maximising the use of renewable energy by integrating it on a mandatory basis into their engineering design. Reducing the use of fossil fuel could significantly contribute to the decrease of throughputs or resources. Renewable energy technologies are not completely environmental friendly due to the fact that its production process requires the consumption of non‐renewable resources and emission intensive processes. Engineers face difficulty in recycling solar panels because of the fact that the materials they are made from are hard to recycle as they are constructed from many different parts and combine together to make one complex product. Without the recycling of photovoltaic (PV) cells, some rare earth elements (REEs) in PV like gallium and indium are being depleted from the environment over time (Energy Central 2018).
In 2015, in New York, the 193‐Member United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This program is divided into 17 SDGs and 169 targets. All of these goals and targets are integrated with the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of sustainable development. Table 1.3 illustrates using practical examples of how engineering strategies can develop to achieve and support these SDGs.
1.6 Engineering Sustainability
Engineers are key members of the community often responsible for unsustainable technological development, but they also have power to reverse this problem by taking account of sustainability issues in their engineering design process. Engineers also play a pivotal role in implementing sustainable development agendas. A group of engineers after the Earth Summit in 1992 identified that about 70% of the issues listed in Agenda 21 concerned engineering design, and at least 10% of these issues had major engineering applications (Smith et al. 2007). The skills required for sustainable engineering represent a meta‐disciplinary endeavour, combining information and insights across multiple disciplines and perspectives with the common goal of achieving a desired balance among economic, environmental, and societal objectives (Mihelcic et al. 2003). This is an urgent task for current and future engineers to innovate resource efficient and environmentally friendly technologies to assist future generations to live within earth's carrying capacity. As we approach the future, more resources will become scarce and so it will become increasingly challenging or difficult tasks for engineers to address sustainability issues such as global warming, deforestation, social inequity, and resource scarcity. Engineers need to improve their thinking process and change their mind set now as to what needs to be done in order to deliver products and services to society within a resource and carbon constrained economy.
Table 1.3 Example of successful engineering solutions to achieve SDGs
SDG
Directly related
GOAL 1: No poverty
The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has enabled the grassroots producers in developing nations to access market and price information and create employment opportunities to eradicate poverty (World Bank
2013
) The application of a human operated pedal pump for pumping water from ponds for treatment using low‐cost hollow fibre membranes and granular activated carbon columns not only overcomes limitations in existing water technologies to provide affordable water supply in arsenic‐contaminated villages in developing nations but also creates local employment by involving local people in the water business (Biswas and Leslie
2007
) Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Australia, is involved in humanitarian engineering as they are working with communities in Cambodia, Vietnam and Timor Leste to design appropriate technologies using locally available indigenous resources to create change in four key thematic areas, including water, sanitation and hygiene, shelter, energy and education to alleviate poverty (EWB
2018
)
GOAL 2: Zero Hunger and GOAL 15: Life on land
In the Sahara Forest Project, engineers produced electricity from solar power more efficiently to operate energy‐ and water‐efficient saltwater‐cooled greenhouses for producing high value crops in the desert, to desalinate seawater using solar radiation to produce freshwater for irrigating crops, safely manage brine which was produced as a by‐product in seawater desalination to harvest useful compounds from the resulting salt to grow salt tolerant biomass for energy purposes without competing with food cultivation, and also to revegetate desert lands (Sahara Forest Project
2020
) Telecommunication and digitalisation in agriculture has improved farmers' knowledge of the efficient use of chemicals and water to increase productivity (Light
2009
)
GOAL 3: Good health and well‐being
Using 3D printing technologies, a range of medical products were manufactured to address the shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID19 pandemic (Richardson
2020
) United Kingdom and Norway are considering the use of clean energy powered electric vehicles as a replacement of diesel and petrol cars to reduce air pollution (Coren
2018
)
GOAL 4: Quality education
ICT has been used to develop a professional development program for teachers/trainers to assist them to integrate project‐based learning into six schools in Chile, India, and Turkey to enhance students learning outcomes and apply theory to practice (Light
2009
) Pacific islands are mountainous and Appropriate Technology for the Community and Environment (APACE) took the advantage of the use of these slopes to generate electricity through hydropower using local indigenous designed resources (e.g. wooden dam and a penstock supported by trees). The micro‐hydro projects have turbines of 10–12 kW capacity and generate 5 kW or less to provide lighting in order to allow children to study at night (Bryce and Bryce
1998
)
GOAL 5: Gender Equality GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
Rural women have been found to walk long distances to collect water, as there is usually only one or two deep tube water wells in villages in some developing parts of the world. SkyJuice came up with engineering solutions suitable for supplying safe drinking water for humanitarian programs in remote locations in developing nations including emergency and disaster relief using both surface and ground water supplies to reduce this drudgery on rural women. They introduced ultrafiltration membranes providing low cost physical filtration including disinfection to remove bacteria, protozoa, and pathogens greater than 0.04 μm. This filtration technology is known as ‘SkyHydrants’ which are lightweight and easy to transport, require no power to operate and can be setup and run by non‐technical persons. It offered safe and clean water for less than $1 per person per year (SkyJuice Foundation
2020
)
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
There is now more than one solar panel installed per person in Australia due to significant reductions in the cost of solar electricity with the increase in the maturity of the market and manufacturing facilities of this system. Systems cost in 2020 is over 50% less to install than in 2012 (Sykes
2020
) Since the energy intensity of renewable energy is less than fossil fuel based electricity and also as these energy sources are intermittent, both demand and supply side management is crucially important to further improve the sustainability of these systems. Smart grid technology has been used in integrating demand side management into renewable power system operation, making it possible to monitor and integrate diverse energy sources into power systems while facilitating and simplifying their interconnection. It has cost efficiently integrated the behaviour and actions of all users connected to it – generators, consumers, and those that do both – in order to ensure economically efficient power systems with low losses and high levels of quality and security of supply and safety (Australia Trade and Investment Commission
2017
)
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality
An integrated ecological, economic, and social model was developed to assist sustainable rural development in villages in Bangladesh to create income‐generating activities using renewable energy technologies (RETs) for male landless and marginal farmers and for women from such households, while reducing environmental problems, like deforestation and indoor air pollution from cooking with poor‐quality fuels. With the assistance of an External Agency composed of NGO, business, government and university representatives, such groups of villagers form Village Organizations, comprising cooperatives or other forms of business, borrow money from a bank or large NGO, and purchase a RET based on biogas, solar or wind, depending upon location. By selling energy to wealthier members of the village, the Village Organizations repay their loans, thus gaining direct ownership and control over the technology and its applications (Biswas et al.
2001
)
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Industrial symbiosis is one way to achieve industrial sustainability to reduce disposal of wastes or emissions to water and atmosphere through the realisation of regional resource synergies. The CSBP chemical works which is a fertilizer company in Western Australia supplies its gypsum by‐product for residue area amelioration at an alumina refinery. Built in 1999, a cogeneration facility (40 MW), owned by Verve Energy, provides superheated steam and electricity for process needs at the nearby Tiwest pigment plant. These resource synergies are beneficial for both companies (van Beers et al.
2007
)
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
Ground Water Recycling is the process by which secondary treated wastewater undergoes advanced treatment to produce recycled water which meets Australian guidelines for drinking water prior to being recharged to an aquifer for later use as a drinking water source (Simms et al.
2017
). This way people do not have any psychological problem in drinking wastewater.
GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
The introduction of an energy efficient Building Management System (BMS) in a new engineering building at of Curtin University reduced energy consumption significantly. The specific energy consumption of the usage stage of the university is 0.92 GJ/m
2
/year which is 18% higher than the specific energy consumption of the new engineering building (i.e. 0.74 GJ/m
2
/year). GHG emissions from this engineering building are 63% lower than the university building ‘usage stage’ average (i.e. 0.16 ton CO
2
e‐) (Biswas
2014
) The replacement of conventional concrete with mixes using construction and demolition wastes and industrial by‐products (Fly Ash and micro‐silica) offers the same compressive strength with economic savings (i.e. 7–18%) and environmental savings (i.e. 14–31%) (Shaikh et al.
2019
)
GOAL 13: Climate Action GOAL 14: Life Below Water
Remanufacturing a compressor reduced CO
2
emissions by almost 1.5 ton/unit, equivalent to taking a small car off the road (Biswas and Rosano
2011
). Engineers built a seawall to separate land and water areas, and this wall was primarily designed to prevent erosion and other damage due to wave action. However, rich and vibrant habitats of marine species have been replaced with seawalls and degraded by plastic pollution. In recent years, Volvo developed seawall tiles after its research found that one rubbish truck of plastic enters the world's oceans every minute (Yalcinkaya
2019
). More than half of Sydney' s shoreline is made of artificial seawalls. The Seawall consists of 50 hexagonal tiles with small corners and recesses that are designed to imitate the root structure of native mangrove trees – a popular habitat for marine wildlife. Each tile is made from marine‐grade concrete that has been reinforced with recycled plastic fibres
GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
Today, the engineering profession seems to have preserved the sense that technology is almost by necessity a force for good. Engineers focused on the technical and managerial sides of technology – how to design algorithms; how to build machines – but not so much on the context of the technologies deployment or its unintended consequences. Engineers are typically are not very interested in politics and social dynamics. They do not make weapons for a specific war or algorithms for a specific surveillance activity. As a result, engineers who build these devices usually operate totally removed from the consequences of their actions (El‐Zein
2013
)
GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal
Woodside, an oil exploration company, engaged their engineers with the local Aboriginal indigenous communities in the gas exploration site of their Pluto project to minimise impacts to Aboriginal cultural heritage, access to land and rights to land (Woodside Energy Ltd.
1999
). They talked with the aboriginal communities and traditional owners about project plans, and involved them in monitoring non‐ground disturbing works and conducted heritage surveys. The project design had to be changed to avoid or minimise impacts to heritage based on work programs clearance reports
This book deals with the contribution of engineering to the development and implementation of sustainable solutions and is based on the popular ideas of Boyle (2004): The engineering context of sustainability involves the design and management of sustainable technology, research into environmental and social impacts and limitations, living within global limitations, and management of resources from cradle to cradle. This book discusses life cycle assessment tools to enable engineers to think out of the box so that they are able to find or select processes, chemicals and energy used during the life cycle from cradle to cradle of products or services which can be included in their engineering design to avoid negative social, economic, and environmental consequences. Incorporating life cycle concepts into their engineering design will enhance recycling, remanufacturing, and recovering of EoL products/components, therefore contributing to the reduction in the size of landfill as well as the reduced use of land for upstream activities, including mining, processing, and manufacturing. The concept of industrial ecology enables engineers to achieve a zero waste solution by exchanging wastes and by‐products between neighbouring industries in an industrial park, reduce ecological footprint or land for human consumption, and to enhance carrying capacity. Engineers will be able to understand how the use of cleaner production strategies can achieve environmental solutions in an economically feasible manner. Finally, they will be able to assess the social, economic, and environmental implications of an engineering innovation.
The book content is broadly organised in three clusters:
The Engineering Sustainability Challenges
: An introduction to the sustainable development agenda and debate, covering key sustainability issues (local, national, and global) and key government and corporate response strategies, engineering's impacts on community, society, and culture.
Sustainability Assessment Tools
: The ‘nuts and bolts’ of efficient resource utilisation in ‘industrial’ and service operations, identification of social, economic, and environmental and
triple bottom line
(
TBL
) ‘hotspots’, cause diagnosis, and sustainability implications/consequences.
Sustainable Engineering Solutions
: An exploration of the role of technology (engineering) in achieving sustainable development or TBL objectives, covering both sustainability‐driven innovations as well as sustainability‐applications of emerging technologies.
1.7 IPAT
In a series of papers during 1970–1974, Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren proposed the IPAT equation to estimate the overall impact of our economic activities on the environment (Holdren 1993):
where
I
=
the impact (total impact of mankind on the planet),
P
=
the population (total population size),
A
=
affluence (number of products or services consumed per person), and
T
=
technology (impact per unit consumed, often called technology efficiency).
This equation has also a significant bearing on engineering innovation, as it helps discern the level of technological improvement required to reduce the environmental impacts associated with increased population levels and economic growth.
As shown in Figure 1.2, affluence is represented in terms of GDP per capita, which is the total value of goods produced and services provided in dollar terms in a specific country during one year. In order to develop GDP growth, engineers are required to develop technologies to explore for resources and then convert them to products and services for society. When these technologies use energy and material resources to produce products and then deliver services, emissions and wastes are created together with increased environmental impacts. The use of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency could help engineers to achieve a low carbon economy.
For example, consider a situation where the human population is increased by 200% and the level of affluence by 500% against current levels. If the environmental impacts of this future scenario are required to be only 50% of current levels, the IPAT equation can work out the level of technological improvement (what value of technological factor) that is required.
The equation for the current scenario is
The ingredients for developing future scenario are as follows:
where ‘X’ is a technological factor.
The equation for the future scenario is
Therefore, future technology must be 20 times more efficient than current technologies. It is a challenge for future engineers to come up with the innovations required to achieve significant technological development; however, this is the level of innovation required to reduce the associated environmental impacts associated with GDP growth.
1.8 Environmental Kuznets Curves
Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) represents the environmental consequences of economic activities. It is the inverted U curve of the Kuznets' curve of income vs social equity, where the social equity (i.e. income gap between people in the same generation) decreases with income up to a certain point and then social equity increases with further increase in income which then creates more business and employment generation activities. In the case of EKC, the situation is completely reversed as the environmental emissions increase with income up to a certain point due to increases in the production of products and growth of service sectors, but after this point, pollutions levels decrease with the increase in income as people can afford to manage and control pollution levels. However, the inverted U relationship may not hold for the long term. As Figure 1.3 shows, an increase of pollution occurs again with the increase in income. This is because of the gradual conversion of natural resources to man‐made capital often causing the irreversible and irreparable damage to earth, when even a large amount of investment in technology cannot control emissions and waste levels. At this point, the level of pollutants in the air and soil contamination have far exceeded the critical limits. Super technology or engineering innovation will reach its maximum limit at this point.
Figure 1.3 Environmental Kuznets curve
1.9 Impact of Engineering Innovation on Earth's Carrying Capacity
Dematerialisation through ICT, renewable energy technologies, waste management, 7Rs (reuse, recycling, reduce, remanufacturing/repurpose, retrofit/refurbish, recovery, redesign), energy efficiency, green chemistry principles can increase the carrying capacity of the earth and conserve adequate material resources to sustain earth's population. The carrying capacity is in fact the maximum population (i.e. red dotted line in Figure 1.4) that a region can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment. The over consumption of earth resources associated with population growth and the overuse of resource intensive technologies are reducing earth's carrying capacity significantly (Meadows et al. 2004
