The engineer and the

environmentalist
11th March 2020 12:57 pm

The infrastructure sector is tasked with responding to huge societal and

environmental challenges. It is a crucial piece of the puzzle in our efforts to meet
the Sustainable Development Goals and in, ultimately, enabling a world that can
thrive socially, economically and environmentally. But in order to do this, engineers
in the sector must confront some innate contradictions between sustainable
development and traditional approaches to infrastructure development;
contradictions that have contributed to our current crisis.
At first glance, engineering and environmental sustainability exist on very different
planes
Engineering as a discipline exists in the service of people. Historically, engineers
have used our technical skills in shaping the world to the benefit of human lives.
However, we are increasingly realising that the world is not so easily controlled and
that many of our accepted engineering approaches have negative impacts on the
environment and, unintentionally, on the people that they are intended to serve.
This raises an existential question: are engineering and environmental sustainability
inevitably in conflict, or can we develop a more holistic approach to engineering for
complex 21st century challenges?

Dr Carla Washbourne – Lecturer in environmental science and policy, UCL

Modern engineering is still dominated by significant use of water, energy and

material resources. Internationally, large construction projects make extensive use
of concrete, steel and glass, without significant discretion to the environmental
context of building form or materials.
Engineering retains an inclination to create artificial environments through material,
architectural and technological innovation, simulating our needs for heating, cooling
and lighting in functionally sealed spaces. Engineering also exists comfortably
within the world of contemporary resource economics, where labour, materials and
products are carefully quantified and exchanged. Environmental sustainability
depends on impact reduction and a mindfulness and sensitivity towards our
interactions with the wider environment.
Assigning a monetary value to the environmental impact of development projects
has become more common since the end of the 20th century. However, practical
and philosophical debates continue, the most central being: can, or should, we use
economic thinking to judge the often poorly quantified, or effectively unquantifiable,
experiences and benefits that we get from our environment?
To this day many approaches to common challenges of water supply and waste
processing still rely on controlling and bypassing rather than working in sympathy
with the broader environment
This isn’t a completely new concern. Environmental engineering is one area in
which the relationship between engineer and environmentalist has been historically
explored and tested, practically from the earliest days of civilisation. As a modern
profession, environmental engineering emerged in the development of the large-
scale infrastructures of the 19th century industrial revolution. However, to this day
many approaches to common challenges of water supply and waste processing still
rely on controlling and bypassing rather than working in sympathy with the broader
environment.
Large-scale contemporary water infrastructure projects such as the Thames
Tideway Tunnel are largely reflective of this approach. This project has been both
praised for its scale and ambition, and criticised for its comparative lack of vision in
authentically integrating more environmentally sensitive approaches. Engineering
has reached a critical nexus: well positioned to contribute to solutions to global
challenges, but only in light of a deep reflection on long engrained assumptions and
practices.
There is increasing evidence that engineering disciplines are starting to making
great advances in adopting more low-impact approaches. Mindsets have begun to
change across the industry, with increasing global awareness of the impacts of
engineering projects as they increase in pace and scale with urbanisation and
development. The scope of these impacts has become impossible to ignore, in the
face of the combined challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and water
scarcity.

Dr Jenny McArthur – Lecturer in Urban Infrastructure and Policy, UCL

World-leading engineering firms dedicate significant capacity to environmental
impact assessment, taking a broad-based view of the impact of developments over
space and time. Technical innovations abound in design, procurement, construction
and demolition, aided and accompanied by regulations which increasingly frame
construction projects from a whole life cycle perspective and provide incentives and
support for environmental innovation and compliance through project planning and
assessment tools such as BREAAM (Building Research Establishment
Environmental Assessment Method). Sustainability increasingly informs the
standards that specify designs, materials and approaches.
Alongside technical improvements in engineering practice, it is becoming
increasingly necessary to engage directly with urban planners, regulators and
infrastructure decision-makers to give us the opportunity to proactively guide more
environmentally-sound engineering solutions. Often the barriers result from public
policy: sustainable technologies or alternatives exist, but cannot be implemented or
scaled up due to poorly-aligned regulation, institutional structures, or funding or
financing arrangements.
One key opportunity here is in the broad-based and non-disciplinary training of the
next generation of engineers, planners and decision-makers. In many engineering
degrees the broader environmental and social context is not a central part of the
curriculum. Simultaneously, few courses for future policy makers enable a deep
focus on engineering policy and infrastructure decision-making. We are both
engineers by training (engineering geology and civil engineering), now working with
a range of different communities in addressing contemporary engineering policy
challenges. In our teaching on sustainable infrastructure and public policy we
increasingly recognise ourselves as part of a global community of educational
innovators bringing engineering and sustainable development to the same table.
Embedding environmental and sustainability concerns into the education of those
shaping the next generation of infrastructure, will allow future professionals to fully
embrace the holistic, large-scale and long-term approaches needed to address our
21st century challenges.

By https://www.theengineer.co.uk/comment-the-engineer-and-
the-environmentalist/