EEB4073: Engineers in Society

Engineers and the Environment

Course Learning objective
CLO 2: Understand the knowledge of sustainable development in
decision making of engineering problems in societal and
environmental contexts.
Learning outcomes
▪ Able to understand the Environmental Law and its
implications.
▪ Able to apply concepts of sustainable development
to address sustainability challenges in a global
context.
▪ Able to identify the professional and personal
actions with the knowledge and appreciation of
interconnections among economic, environmental,
and social perspectives.
Environment
Quality Act 1974
 Why we need environmental law?
❑ Environmental issues are:
➢ Human health,
➢ Natural resources or ecology degradation.
❑ Result from:
➢ Human impact,
➢ Technology impact,
➢Lifestyle impact.

❑ Environmental issues in Malaysia and global:

➢ Global warming and global dimming,
➢ Deforestation,
➢ Acid rain and ocean acidification,
➢ Ozone depletion,
➢ Biodiversity loss,
➢ Waste management,
➢ Haze,
➢ Flood & drought,
➢ Etc.

5 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 Application
❑ Method of solution:
➢ By enforcement of EQA 1974 to control pollution,
preserving, protecting and improving the quality of our
environment as a main control measure Natural
resources or ecology degradation.
➢ Other mechanisms such as technological expertise,
economic factors, and public awareness will support
this main control measure in order to achieve the real
objective.

http://www.agc.gov.my/agcportal/uploads/files/Publicati
ons/LOM/EN/Act%20127.pdf

Link to EQA 1974 document

6 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 EQA 1974 (Incorporating all amendments up to 1 January 2006)
❑ Comprehensive law provide common legal basis.

❑ Objective for prevention, abatement and control of pollution and enhancement of

environment by restricting discharge of waste which apply to the whole Malaysia.

❑ Consist of subsidiary regulations and orders.

❑ Mechanisms of control
➢ licensing & approval for existing operation;
➢ prohibition of equipment and material
➢ EIA requirement

7 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 Important part in EQA 1974
❑ Part 1 Preliminary:
➢ State the title, application and commencement (Sec 1) of the act. Related terminologies (2) used in the act was defined for ease of
implementation.

❑ Part 2 Administration:

➢ Assigned power given to DG /other officers (3) for administer the act.
▪ Among the state duty of administration include;
✓ Control the issuance of license
✓ Undertake survey & investigation of pollution sources
✓ To conduct, promote & coordinate research related to pollution
✓ Recommend standard and criteria for protection.

❑ Part 3 Licenses:

➢ Licensing authority given to DG (10)

➢ To approve any renewal/transfer/installment of fee
➢ Grant a license(11).
➢ License given
➢ require a holder for repair, alter or replace equipment
➢ For a period of 1 year (13) and transferable (14)
➢ License fee (17) may be differentiate according to
➢ Class of premise, location, quantity of discharge, class of pollutant discharge and existing level of pollution

❑ Part 4 Prohibition and Control of Pollution: (Refer EQA 1974)

8 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT AS A
GLOBAL FRAMEWORK
Sustainability
 SUSTAINABILITY – An Overview
❑ Sustainability is the capacity to endure or continue.
✓ For example: If a product or activity is sustainable, it can be reused,
recycled, or repeated in some way because it has not exhausted all of the
resources or energy required to create it.

❑ Sustainability also can be broadly defined as the ability of something to

maintain itself.
✓ For example: Biological systems such as wetlands or forests are good
examples of sustainability since they remain diverse and productive over
long periods of time.

Seen in this way, sustainability has to do with preserving resources and energy
over the long term rather than exhausting them quickly to meet short-term needs
or goals.

10 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY - An Overview
❑ Sustainability seeks new ways of addressing the relationship between societal growth and
environmental degradation, which would allow human societies and economies to grow without
destroying or overexploiting the environment or ecosystems in which those societies exist.
✓ The most widely quoted definition of sustainability comes from the Brundtland Commission of
the United Nations in 1987, which defined sustainability as meeting “the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf

11 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY – The Model
But sustainability is about more than just the economic benefits of recycling materials and resources.
While the economic factors are important, sustainability also accounts for the social and environmental
consequences of human activity.
➢ This concept is referred to as the “three pillars of sustainability,” which asserts that true
sustainability depends upon three interlocking factors: environmental preservation (protection),
social equity, and economic viability (development).

12 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY – The Model

❑ First, sustainable human activities

must protect the earth’s
environment.
❑ Second, people and communities
must be treated fairly and equally—
Economic
particularly in regard to eradicating
Environmental Social
▪ Financially
▪ Conserve ▪ Promote global poverty and the environmental
Feasible
▪ Long-term
Resources
▪ Protect Nature
Community
▪ Eradicate
exploitation of poor countries and
Management
▪ Balance Global
▪ Preserve Poverty communities.
▪ Ensure Equality
Economy
Wildlife
❑ and third, sustainability must be
economically feasible—human
development depends upon the long-
term production, use, and
management of resources as part of
a global economy.

13 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY – The Model
Economic Environmental
Social
▪ Financially ▪ Conserve ▪ Promote
Feasible Resources Community
▪ Long-term
Management
▪ Protect ▪ Eradicate
Nature Poverty
▪ Balance
▪ Ensure
Global ▪ Preserve
Equality
Economy Wildlife

Environmental Social

❖ Only when all three of these pillars are

incorporated can an activity or enterprise be
described as sustainable.
➢ Some describe this three-part model as:
Planet, People and Profit.
Economic

14 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY- Strengthening of Capabilities

❑ Improving the people’s capability for a better quality of life implies a

development which focuses on the strengthening of the persons’
capabilities (sustainable human development).
❑ It differs from a development focussing on the individual’s income
(growth), even if the two may be interrelated (well-being, quality of life).
❑ It should reduce the capability poverty: lack of capability which implies
other forms of poverty.
❑ This implies appropriate policies: education plays the major role through it
four domains i.e. learning to know, to be, to live together, and to do.

15 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY- Strengthening of Capabilities

❑ The process of education:

➢ Informing on Sustainable Development.
➢ Strengthening People’s Capabilities.
➢ Ensuring Social Sustainability.
➢ Facilitating the Transmission of Capabilities.

16 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY- Strengthening of Capabilities
❑ The process of education:
➢ Informing on Sustainable
Development.
➢ Strengthening People’s
Capabilities.
➢ Ensuring Social
Sustainability.
➢ Facilitating the Transmission
of Capabilities.
▪ Education is the best way to teach the people:
✓ On the world current situation (both for economic, social,
environment issue) and the consequences for future generations.
✓ On how to behave for saving protected resources, avoiding pollution
and waste, etc.
▪ This could be done through specific modules in all forms of
education, formal, non-formal and informal, and towards the
various population groups.
• Training of the teachers and decision-makers on the content and
objectives of human sustainable development is essential. The
support of the medias is also needed.
• Adapted training materials (books, pictures, videos) to the public
and the local context are required.

17 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 SUSTAINABILITY- Strengthening of Capabilities
❑ The process of education:
➢ Informing on Sustainable
Development.
➢ Strengthening People’s
Capabilities.
➢ Ensuring Social
Sustainability.
➢ Facilitating the Transmission
of Capabilities.
18 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment
▪ Enhancing the person’s capabilities is the basis of education
for all programs.
▪ The four domains of Dakar Framework for action;
✓ Learning to know (cognitive skills): reasoning,
✓ Learning to be (personal skills): dignity,
✓ Learning to live together (social skills): social capital,
✓ Learning to do (practical skills): know-how to act.
▪ Acquiring these skills helps to convert potentialities into
capabilities and to achieve functioning.
▪ Through all forms of education: primary, secondary, technical
and vocational, higher, and lifelong learning.
 SUSTAINABILITY- Strengthening of Capabilities
❑ The process of education:
➢ Informing on Sustainable
Development.
➢ Strengthening People’s
Capabilities.
➢ Ensuring Social
Sustainability.
➢ Facilitating the Transmission
of Capabilities.
19 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment
▪ A key issue nowadays:
✓ Poverty reduction objective: going out of poverty traps, avoiding social
exclusion, eradicating destitution, ensuring access, etc.
✓ Living peacefully together: social and cultural diversity, gender
sensitivity, children acceptance, Gen difference, etc.
▪ The guarantee of quality education for all, can bring greater
benefits to society.
▪ For the second, the role of psycho-social abilities: to enhance
personal skills (self-esteem, coping) and social skills
(cooperation, empathy, negotiation). The objectives of learning to
be and learning to live together.
▪ Other specific values and capabilities are to teach: the sense of
justice, equity, responsibility, sharing with others.
 SUSTAINABILITY- Strengthening of Capabilities
❑ The process of education:
➢ Informing on Sustainable
Development.
➢ Strengthening People’s
Capabilities.
➢ Ensuring Social
Sustainability.
➢ Facilitating the Transmission
of Capabilities.
▪ By definition, education aims at transmitting any form of
knowledge from one person to another.
▪ For sustainable development, the issue is to ensure that the
future generations receive, in an equitable way, both the
potentialities and the skills they need to build their capability of
improving the quality of life (well-being).
▪ There is a complex chain of transmission: the teachers, the
parents, the pupils, the trainees, people in the medias.
▪ At this level, the quality for education is fundamental: it
guarantees the quality of what will be transmitted to the next
generation.

20 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT AS A
GLOBAL FRAMEWORK
Environmental Issues
 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
The world faces a number of major environmental issues, which threaten to have dire consequences for
the future of the planet and its life-forms unless tackled. Many of these environmental issues are man-
made, the result of pressures the human race has placed on the planet through activities such as land
clearance, globalization and industrialization. Environmental problems contribute to global warming and to
the destruction of ecosystems.

Air Pollution

Deforestation

Consequence
to earth

Water Pollution
Soil Erosion

22 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
There are issues that emerged which created by human itself.

❑ Population growth
➢ Population growth is one of the most significant causes of environmental problems. Humans require
energy, space and resources to survive. According to the Clean Water Action Council, population growth is
the biggest threat to the environment. The human population is rising beyond the Earth's ability to
regenerate. Population growth leads to scarce sources of water in places around the world, along with
scarce cropland, declining fisheries and forests and species extinction.
❑ Poverty
➢ Poverty is a significant cause of environmental problems. For example, deforestation leads to increasingly
devastated land. Forests in these nations are damaged exponentially because timber companies,
agricultural businesses and local populations use forest resources for survival.
❑ Wasteful Use of Resources
➢ The practice of wasting valuable resources such as water, food and electricity by human can contribute to
environmental problems.

23 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES - FIVE Stages in Addressing an
Environmental Problem.
❑ Environmental problems occur when changes in the biological or physical factors of the environment
have adverse effects on the environment that affect humans.
➢ For example, ecological changes in a lake may affect the local fishing industry; or changes in a
waste management site's disposal mechanism may introduce pollutants into the groundwater.
The goals of a five-stage approach addressing environmental problems are to ensure that the
problem and solution are clearly defined; the appropriate regulatory mechanisms and
enforcement agencies are involved; and that key players work together to develop and
implement a plan for resolution.

24 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES - FIVE Stages in Addressing an
Environmental Problem.
1. Identify the Environmental Problem
A problem statement should be developed that is descriptive
enough to allow a regulatory agency to determine whether or
not the problem justifies action. Effective problem statements
include enough research to analyze and document why the
problem is serious enough to be addressed; are presented in
such a way that measurable results can be obtained after the
implementation of a solution; clearly define the pollutant or
indicator and the environmental risks posed by it; define the
geographic boundaries of the problem; and indicate whether
the vehicle for the environmental threat stems from a non-
compliance issue.
25 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment
2. Establish Goals and Measures
Your blueprint for successfully addressing your environmental
problem will be drawn as you set specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic and time-sensitive goals and identify the
measures that you will use to determine your progress.
Checking on your progress along the way can help you
determine whether you need to alter your actions to more
effectively address the problem, and ticking off milestones
helps you stay on track toward your end goal. You can use this
stage to measure the effect of each of the tools you are using
to address the problem, such as compliance assistance,
incentives, monitoring and enforcement.
 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES - FIVE Stages in Addressing an
Environmental Problem.

3. Put Together a Problem-Solving Toolkit 4. Determine Roles and Responsibilities

Environmental problems can often be solved by simply The appropriate working groups, committees and subject
asking the offending party to rectify the problem. This matter experts should be identified and brought together to
may involve public education and involvement -- for define actionable steps and delegate the responsibility of
example, requesting that homeowners only water their ensuring those steps are carried out. This stage involves a clear
lawns on certain days during times of drought to avoid assignment of roles and responsibilities among the entities
exacerbation of groundwater losses. Resolution goals and is designed to ensure that the best minds are applied in
may also be achieved through compliance-based the most effective and efficient manner.
activities. The Environmental Protection Agency uses
tools such as compliance assistance, compliance
monitoring, compliance incentives, enforcement and
innovation to help steer stakeholders towards a desired
behavior that will lead to a positive environmental result.

26 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES - FIVE Stages in Addressing an
Environmental Problem.
5 Stages
5. Implement the Plan
The development of a step-by-step plan is worthless without Identify the Environmental Problem
implementation. This last stage of environmental problem
solving involves implementing the plan through careful
scheduling; identifying key challenges and opportunities; and Establish Goals and Measures
evaluating milestones and progress. Once stakeholders
identify and begin a work plan, if periodic evaluations show Put Together a Problem-Solving Toolkit
that the desired progress is not being made, then they can re-
visit their strategies and evaluate a revised work plan. It is
through this kind of adaptive management strategy that newly Determine Roles and Responsibilities
developed technologies and ideas can influence the successful
resolution of an environmental problem.
Implement the Plan

Source: https://classroom.synonym.com/five-stages-addressing-environmental-problem-6136280.html

27 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES – MITIGATION ACTION.
❑ Several mitigation action that can be contributed to preserve the
environmental.
✓ Recycling of waste materials.
✓ Greening of the cities.
✓ Landscape restoration and rehabilitation.
✓ Usage of renewable energy i.e. solar, wind, hydroelectric power, etc.
✓ Usage of low energy electrical appliance.
✓ Etc.

28 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES – MITIGATION ACTION.
❑ Example: Paper recycling process. Recycling one (1) ton of paper saves;

✓ 17 mature trees,
✓ 26 m3 of water,
✓ 2.3 m3 of landfill space,
✓ 2 barrels of oil (84 US gal or 320 l), and
✓ 4,100 kilowatt-hours (15 GJ) of electricity
(US EPA, 2010)

Save enough energy to power the average Malaysian home for six months.

29 1/26/2023 Engineers and the Environment

End of presentation and Thank You.