What is Green Design?

Paulina Jaramillo
Aurora Sharrard

Graduate Students, CEE

 What Does a Civil Engineer
Do?
Design, analyze, and construct
Structures
Dams, buildings, pipelines, and bridges
Geotechnical
Soils, foundations, slope stability

Transportation
Roads and traffic
 What Does an Environmental
Engineer Do?
Monitor, model, and improve
Water Quality
Wastewater, drinking water, groundwater
Air Quality
Outdoor, indoor, atmospheric
Waste
Solid, hazardous, recycling
What Does a Green Design
Engineer Do?
Prevent pollution, waste
Analyze multi-faceted problems
Engineering and science
Economics
Public policy
Deal with uncertainty
Build tools (computer models) to solve
problems and assist decision makers
Green Design Research

Life cycle analysis or assessment

Energy and electricity in the economy
Green construction
Harvesting methane from landfills
Tracking metals through the environment
Feasibility of cellulose ethanol (fuel from
plants) for transportation
Life style indicators for CMU
Your Five Days With Us
Our goals for you:

Identify your environmental impacts from

typical, every-day decisions.

Develop systematic thinking in terms of life

cycles

Realize that decision making is difficult and

often doesnt have one right answer.
Your Five Days With Us

How will we do that

Today life cycles: simple (?) products

Oct life cycles: complex products
Nov energy
Jan water
Feb buildings

Activities, Exercises, Discussion

Your Five Days With Us

How you can help

Ask us tough questions

Think broadly, outside the box

Be honest let us know how were doing

 Framework for the Program
Increased pollution and
related health effects

Population Increased
Uncertainty resource
increase: demand for
Decreased biodiversity availability, climate
material
1.6 billion to and natural habitat variability, other
and energy
6 billion environmental impacts
resources

Change in ecosystems,
atmospheric systems

Population x Wealth/Person x Environmental Impact/Wealth = Environmental Impact