Engineering Sustainability

Introduction
Lecture 1
Nasrat Kareem Murad
Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering Department
Content
• - Introduction
• Sustainability- Definition
• Sustainability- Need & Concept
• Social Sustainability Concept
• Environmental Sustainability Concept
• Economic Sustainability Concept
• Sustainable Development
 1. SUSTAINABILITY- INTRODUCTION
The concept of sustainability become so important nowadays,
because of the irreparable damage caused to the environment
by industrial civilization & consumerism, which originated
about 3 centuries ago. They were based on the following
wrong assumptions:
• Earth belongs to the humans only
• Ignore the fact that humans are part of the Earth's biosphere
• Earth's stock of resources are infinite
• Environment can bear any amount of damage that is caused
by human activity.

Introduction
The advantages & disadvantages of industrial
civilization & consumerism are listed below:-
Advantages
1. Flourished the economy
2. Improved the living quality of the society
Disadvantages
1. Caused irreparable damage to the
environment
2. Pose a threat to the life support systems of
earth.
3. E.g.1.The hole in the ozone layer surrounding
our planet as a shield against the dangerous
ultraviolet radiation from the sun
4. E.g.2. Increased carbon dioxide content and
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that
cause global warming source
Several warnings concerning the instability of Earth’s life support systems
have been raised in the recent times. In 1992, some of the world’s senior
scientists from 70 countries, signed and sent an urgent warning “The
environment is suffering critical stress…” to the government leaders of all
nations as part of the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (the “Earth Summit”) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This
marked the beginning of the concept sustainability. Sustainability is
based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and
well being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural
environment. Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under
which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit
fulfilling the requirements of present and future generations.
Sustainability is important to making sure that we have and will continue
to have, the water, materials, and resources to protect human health and
our environment.
2. SUSTAINABILITY- DEFINITION
Sustainability is the ability to achieve continuing economic prosperity while protecting the natural
systems of the planet and providing a high quality of life for its people.
3. SUSTAINABILITY- NEED & CONCEPT
Sustainability has three components, which are inter-related, as shown in Fig.1:
1. Environment
2. Society
3. Economy
Environment gives resources, raw materials to the Economy for production activities.
Economy creates products and sells it to society for use. Production by Economy and
Consumption by Society lead to the following environmental impacts.
1. Exhaustion of Resources – Water, Petroleum, Forests
2. Loss of Biodiversity - Extinction of Animal/Plant Species due to Water, Soil, Air Pollution
3. Deforestation - conversion of forestland to farms, urban use etc.
4. Ozone Depletion - reduction of the amount of ozone in the stratosphere due to the
emission of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). CFC/s emitted from the industries, rises to the
Stratosphere. Sunlight breaks CFCs to release Chlorine. Chlorine reacts with Ozone and
destroys it.
5. Acid Deposition – results in acid rain, acid fog and acid mist.
6. Desertification - type of land degradation in which a land region becomes dry, typically
losing its water bodies, vegetation and wildlife.
7. Eutrophication - form of water pollution occurs when excessive fertilizers run into lakes
and rivers. This encourages the overgrowth of algae and other aquatic plants.
8. Global Warming - gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth's
atmosphere and its oceans, caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases –
Carbon oxides, Nitrous oxides, sulphur oxides, Fluorocarbons
The environmental impact, caused by economy on production and society on consumption, leads to
the following damages to human life.
1. Fresh water scarcity
2. Climate change
3. Exposure to toxics in food, air, water and soil
4. Emerging diseases
5. Food insecurity resulting in poverty
6. Energy scarcity due to depletion of non-renewable resources
7. Ecosystem damage and habitat loss due to pollutant discharges
8. Sea level rise
The need of sustainability is to reduce these damages
and create a livable planet earth for the future
generations. For this, United Nations presented the
following key sustainability concepts:- Inter generational
equity – Expects the present generation to hand over a
safe, healthy and resourceful environment to the future
generation. Intra-generational equity – Emphasize the
technological development should support economic
growth of the poorer section, so as to reduce the gap
between nations. Sustainability means balancing
environment, society and economy, as shown in Fig 2.
4. SOCIAL- ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY CONCEPTS
The concept of sustainability is based on the basis that people and their communities are made up
of social, economic, and environmental systems that are in constant interaction and that must be
kept in harmony.
SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
There are six principles of sustainability that can help a community ensure that its social, economic, and
environmental systems are well integrated and will endure. A community or society that wants to
pursue sustainability will try to:
1. Maintain residents’ quality of life.
Quality of life has many components: income, education, health care, housing, employment, legal
rights. Each locality must define and plan for the quality of life it wants and believes it can achieve, for
now and for future generations.

2. Enhance local economic vitality.

A viable local economy is essential to sustainability. This includes job opportunities, sufficient tax base
and revenue to support government and the provision of infrastructure and services, and a suitable
business climate.

3. Promote social and intergenerational equity.

A sustainable community’s resources and opportunities are available to everyone, regardless of
ethnicity, age, gender, cultural background, religion, or other characteristics. Further, a sustainable
community does not deplete its resources and destroy natural systems.

4. Maintain the quality of the environment.

A sustainable community tries to find ways to co-exist with natural environment and ecosystem. It
avoids unnecessary degradation of the air, oceans, fresh water, and other natural systems.
5. Incorporate disaster resilience and mitigation into its decisions and actions.
A community is resilient in the face of inevitable natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes,
earthquakes, floods, and drought if it takes steps to ensure that such events cause as little damage as
possible.

6. Use a consensus-building, participatory process when making decisions.

Participatory processes are vital to community sustainability... It encourages the identification of
concerns and issues, promotes the wide generation of ideas for dealing with those concerns, and helps
those involved find a way to reach agreement about solutions.
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Environmental sustainability requires:
1. Maintenance of biodiversity (genes, species and ecosystems)
2. Protection of natural capital (air, water, soils etc)
3. Maintenance of the energy and material cycles of the planet
4. Health and resilience of all life support systems.

This can be achieved by:

1. Reduce dependence upon finite, virgin resources like Fossil fuels, minerals and
metals.
2. Nature must not be subjected to increased concentrations of substances produced
by society. This requires that consideration be given to the biodegradability of
substances and the length of time it takes the earth to reabsorb them.
3. The physical basis for the productivity and biodiversity of nature must be not
systematically degraded. This requires that we protect diverse and special habitats.
4. There must be efficient use and fair distribution of resources to enable humans to
meet their needs. This requires a reduction in consumerism, especially among
wealthy nations.
ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY

The economic sustainability ensures that the industry or business is making profit
without creating much damage to environment/ecology. Economic growth is
expressed in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is the total amount of
production produced within a nation, within one year. Economic growth has to be
sustainable, if it improves quality of human life. Thus population factor must be
included to ensure fair resource consumption.
ECONOMIC-SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MATRIX
5. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The concept of sustainable development has received much recognition after the Stockholm
declaration in the year 1972. Sustainable development is the development which meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
(Definition proposed by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 in their report “Our Common Future”).

The three pillars of sustainable development are environment, society and economy as shown in Fig.3.
Sustainable development should have the following
features:-
1. Satisfying human needs
2. Favouring a good quality of life through decent
standards of living
3. Sharing resources between rich and poor
4. Acting with concern for future generations
5. Looking at the ‘cradle-to-grave’ impact when
consuming
6. Minimizing resource use, waste and pollution
MEASURES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The following are the measures of sustainability development:-
(i) Technology: Using appropriate technology is one which is locally adaptable,
eco-friendly, cost effective, resource efficient and culturally suitable. Nature is
often taken as a model, using the natural conditions of that region as its
components. This concept is known as “design with nature”.
(ii) Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Approach: The 3-R approach advocating
minimization of resource use, using them again, and recycling the materials. It
reduces pressure on our resources as well as reduces waste generation and
pollution.
(iii) Promoting Environmental Education and Awareness:
Making environmental education the centre of all learning process will greatly help in changing the
thinking pattern and attitude of people towards our earth and the environment.
(iv) Resource Utilization as Per Carrying Capacity:
Any system can sustain a limited number of organisms on a long-term basis which is known as its
carrying capacity. If the carrying capacity of a system is crossed (say, by over exploitation of a
resource), environmental degradation starts.
(v) Improving Quality of Life Including Social, Cultural and Economic Dimensions:
Development should not focus just on one-section of already affluent people. Rather it should
include sharing of benefits between the rich and the poor. The tribal, ethnic people and their
cultural heritage should also be conserved.
End of Lecture