Engineering Sustainable Development

ENGINEERING
& SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPEMENT
Made by:
A1 ,DTU/2K16/CO:
Anirudh Gupta/041
Aditya Pandey/024
Anubhav Gupta/054
A Shri Ram/001
Aditya Kapoor/000
What is Sustainable Development?
 "Sustainable development is development that meets

the needs of the present, without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
 The concept of sustainable development can be
interpreted in many different ways, but at its core is an
approach to development that looks to balance different,
and often competing, needs against an awareness of the
environmental, social and economic limitations we face as
a society.
Role of Engineers
 Engineers play a crucial role in creating

infrastructure in the world. Engineers are
problem solvers who apply their knowledge and
experience to building projects that meet human
needs, and to cleaning up environmental
problems. They work on a wide range of issues
and projects, and as a result, how engineers work
can have a significant impact on progress toward
sustainable development.
Role of Engineers
Engineers can contribute to sustainable development along the entire

chain of modern production and consumption, including the following:
 Extracting and developing natural resources
 Processing and modifying resources
 Designing and building transportation infrastructure
 Meeting the needs of consumers
 Recovering and reusing resources
 Producing and distributing energy
Engineering for Sustainable Development
Approximately 15 million engineers populate the world today. As in many other

professions, there are different kinds of engineers, including civil,
environmental, mechanical, electrical, chemical, industrial, agricultural, mining,
petroleum and computer engineers.
Engineers are involved with two kinds of projects:

 They design and build projects that meet basic human needs (potable water,
food, housing, sanitation, energy, transportation, communication, resource
development and industrial processing).
 They solve environmental problems (create waste treatment facilities,
recycle resources, clean up and restore polluted sites and protect or restore
natural ecosystems).
Engineers are problem solvers. They use skills or information to solve problems.
Engineering for Sustainable Development -
Transportation
In the past 200 years, engineers have made continuous breakthroughs in
developing transportation systems:
 Constructing pipelines that move liquid and gas products
 Designing engines and transportation vehicles
 Building bridges and tunnels
 Constructing railroads and high-speed rail systems
 Designing airplanes, airports and air traffic control systems
In the future, engineers will design these transportation systems so that they
will:
 Be more energy efficient
 Create fewer adverse environmental impacts
 Encourage sound urban and rural planning with less urban sprawl
 Create longer-life facilities that can be maintained at lower costs
Resource Recovery and Reuse
In 1990 the average North American produced over 1500 pounds of municipal solid waste,
compared to about 700 pounds by the average Western European. Eighty percent of all
products in the USA are thrown away after one use. For sustainable development to be
possible, our human activities will have to be redesigned to reuse our raw materials and
consumer products many times over.
Engineers can assist in this process in several ways:
 Improving ways to recycle and reuse domestic waste
 Designing better solid waste collection and storage facilities
 Improving methods to collect and reuse construction materials such as concrete and
asphalt from roads, and ways to reuse scrap metal and other natural and synthetic
materials.
 Improving treatment facilities for urban organic waste and human waste so that the
treated fluids and solids may be used safely for agriculture and other purposes.
 Recovering, reusing and remanufacturing byproducts from resource development and
industrial processing.
Environmental Restoration
Some environmental pollution is inevitable in the future, resulting from resource

extraction, industrial processing and transportation, and from wastes generated
by humans wherever we live. In the future, the impacts of residual wastes should
be offset by a variety of environmental restoration projects.
Engineers can assist in restoring environments in several ways:
 Treating and restoring old industrial waste sites
 Reclaiming old mine properties
 Treating polluted groundwater, lakes and streams
 Restoring the ecology of lakes and wetlands
 Renewing aging urban areas in large cities
 Reclaiming and restoring eroded or damaged farmlands
Energy Production and Use
 We now use 80 times more energy than we did in 1850, with attendant
emissions of carbon, sulfur and nitrogen byproducts creating unacceptable
levels of pollution. Humans consume more fossil fuels per year than nature
produces in a million years. The long-term effects of increased energy use
may produce major changes in the earth’s climate.
Energy Production and Use
 In the future, the roles of engineers in energy production may include the following:
 More efficiently extracting and processing remaining petroleum and gas reserves
 Improving the efficiency of electric power stations and using superconductors for power distribution
 Reconsidering the use of nuclear power, assuming that safer facilities can be developed for
generating power and handling nuclear wastes
 Expanding the use of hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, wind, and biomass energy
 Engineers can also play a role in conserving and reducing the use of energy in the following ways:
 Designing energy-efficient buildings
 Designing industrial processes that are more energy efficient
 Using low-energy lighting systems
 Designing more efficient automobiles and public transportation systems
 Increasing the use of underground construction
Meeting Consumer Needs
By the year 2020, there may be 8 billion people in the world. Over
80 percent of this population will be in countries that we describe
as “less developed” or “developing.” About half the world’s
population lives in cities today; within 15 years, there may be
more than 20 cities with populations of 10 million or more, and
500 cities will have more than a million inhabitants. In the next 25
years most of the population is expected to live in “mega-cities”
in developing nations. The engineering profession will be under
continuing pressure to help provide the food and other resources
to this growing population, and the traditional roles of engineers
will be stretched to satisfy the future needs of mega-cities.
Meeting Consumer Needs
The roles of engineers in meeting human needs include the following:

 Creative land planning and development to minimize negative environmental
impacts
 In emerging mega-cities, helping to establish local organizations that can provide
the necessary infrastructure
 Providing treatment facilities and distribution systems for potable water
 Designing systems to collect and store food and other supplies
 Designing housing and commercial buildings
 Developing streets, utility lines, public transportation and other infrastructure
 Using underground space for recreation and other uses
 Providing technologies and facilities for heating and air conditioning
 Creating high-quality treatments for liquid and solid waste
 Reducing the risks of damage and loss of life from natural hazards such as
hurricanes, floods and earthquakes
Engineers as Environmental
Generalists
“Encouraging engineers to become

environmental generalists will help advance
sustainable development by broadening
perspectives in engineering.”
“Encouraging engineers to become actively

engaged in the full range of decision-making
processes, in addition to performing projects,
can make projects more efficient and
effective.”
Future Goals
Engineers believe that many of the problems facing less-

developed nations can be solved by using existing
knowledge, technology and experience. This, combined
with scientific discoveries that can be applied to meeting
basic human needs, could make an enormous difference
in the next 20 years. The challenges and opportunities for
transferring knowledge, building capacity and influencing
the decision-making process are stressed in Chapters 31,
34 and 35 of the Rio Summit’s Agenda 21.
Future Goals
 Creating a comprehensive program to identify and provide the information that
engineers in developing countries need to meet energy requirements, as well as
food, health and other basic human needs.
 Expanding global educational programs on sustainable development for students
and practicing engineers.
 Encouraging more engineers to become environmental generalists.
 Becoming actively engaged in the full range of decision-making processes in
addition to performing projects.
 Improving methods for identifying and considering all of a project’s environmental
costs and impacts throughout a project’s life cycle.
 Creating programs to provide hands-on-help, share knowledge and provide
assistance on technically viable, commercially feasible and socially sustainable
projects in developing countries.
 Supporting well-crafted policies and creative applications of engineering
principles, and committing to
 partnerships with social and physical scientists and health and medical
professionals.
Bibliography / References
 World Federation of Engineering Organizations’ Committee on Technology, August 2002

www.ceae.colorado.edu/~amadei/CVEN4700/PDF/WFEOdoc.pdf
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ENGINEERING

 "Sustainable development is development that meets

 Engineers play a crucial role in creating

Engineers can contribute to sustainable development along the entire

Approximately 15 million engineers populate the world today. As in many other

Engineers are involved with two kinds of projects:

Some environmental pollution is inevitable in the future, resulting from resource

The roles of engineers in meeting human needs include the following:

“Encouraging engineers to become

“Encouraging engineers to become actively

Engineers believe that many of the problems facing less-

 World Federation of Engineering Organizations’ Committee on Technology, August 2002

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