Engineers & sustainability. Problems, Paradoxes and Possibilities

D. Ferrer-Balas “Engineering & Sustainability” Lisboa, SEFI, 29/9/11

Engineers & Sustainability Problems, Paradoxes and Possibilities

Didac Ferrer, Karel Mulder,

Harro Van Lente, Jordi Segalàs



Contents Engineering & Sustainability

1. Problems & Paradoxes

2. Possibilities

3. Conclusions


Ecological year is

“finished”


Evolution?




Engineers & Sustainability


When we ‘ll have finished creating the problem, we’ll

start with the solution (Roto)


http://wikiipedia.eu/ca/wiki/Imatge:Fluorescent_Lamp.jpg.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Lightbulb.jpg


1% of high altitude wind could cover world’s energy demand

http://www.tendencias21.net/TENDENCIAS-DE-LA-INGENIERIA_r19.html



Why Refrigerators?

• Perishable food problem: loss of fish and vegetables, risk of food poisoning

• Toxic/flammable refrigerants:

Ammonia, SO2, CH3Cl, hydrocarbons ..

• Search for safe refrigerants: non toxic, non flammable and effective


Chloro-Fluoro-Carbons

1928 Synthesis by Thomas

Midgley

Main advantages: •effective •Non-toxic

•Non-flammable

•Somewhat more expensive


Cleveland accident: May 15th, 1929: 128 people died of methyl-chloride poisoning

1930 CFC Refrigerant


Other applications

CFCs: Solution for dangerous

spray cans

Airconditioners

http://www.global-b2b-network.com/direct/dbimage/50276195/Split_Wall_Mounted_Type_Air_Conditioner.jpg


1970 Lovelock traces CFC’s in wind at Western Ireland

1974 F. Sherwood Rowland (UC-Irvine), Mario Molina

1984-5 Joe Farman

1987 Protocol Montreal

CFCs as global threat


So?

• 1930: miracle solution: “really sustainable”

• 1974: New issue: atmospheric effects, serious doubts

• 1987: “ozone killer”


Types of knowledge

• What we know

• What we know we don’t know

• What we don’t know we don’t know

How to to manage poorly defined problems & uncertainties?


Post-normal science

When uncertainties are either of epistemological or the ethical kind, or when decision stakes reflect conflicting purposes among stakeholders… the appropriate scientific approach will be based on the assumption of the unpredictability, incomplete control and a plurality of legitimate perspectives

(Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1993)



Naive conceptions ….

“Sustainable because 100 % recyclable”,

“Sustainable Energy, because 100% from renewable sources”


• Sustainable technology is only a useful concept if it involves hardware and software: a socio technical praxis


Technology only makes sense by its social context

Scale:

• The fossil fueled car is sustainable (<1000)

• Rural biofuel energy production: sustainable even if it is rather inefficient

• Efficient biofuel production in industrial countries: unsustainable (it ruins local ecosystems, transport, endangers food security).

24


What is Sustainable Technology? Why is this an important question?

SD is a holistic concept: meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs

But is ill defined at the micro scale…… articulation(s): expressions of SD in regard to needs of people: • Maintaining air/water/.. • quality, • healthy, • not depleting resources, • not contributing to climate change, • ……


SD Articulations Various articulations of SD

– Clean

– Non depleting

– Safe

– Creating options for underprivileged

– …..

Which change over time

And create dilemma’s

– Food or fuel

– Supporting Africa’s poor or being recyclable

– Emitting x or y

– ….

– …

26


27

Safe or fuel efficient?


So Engineering Design: a Perpetuum Mobile? (perpetual motion)

• Or not even that? As it is a waste of brains?


Dilemma’s and Paradoxes

Various SD articulations are important in engineering design

SD Articulations might change over time

SD articulations often create dilemmas

But dilemma’s might turn out to be paradoxes by clever innovation

How to deal with the dilemmas/paradoxes of SD in technology development?

29


1. What is sustainable technology? K. Mulder, D. Ferrer, H. van Lente

2. Perceptions of technology: An historical overview A.W. Stahel,

3. Chlorofluorocarbons: Drivers of their emergence and substitution K. Mulder

4. Vehicles of sustainability in the field of nanocoatings H. van Lente,

5. Articulations of sustainability in the development of wind power in the Netherlands L. M. Kamp,

6. Environmental technology in a new urban neighbourhood: Stockholm’s Hammarby Sjöstad R. Wennersten and A. Spitsyna,

7. Trade-offs in the district heat distribution system M. Svanström, M. Fröling

8. Municipal solid waste: Treatment, management and prevention C. Block and C. Vandecasteele,

9. What is a sustainable transport system? Dilemmas regarding transport solutions in Sweden, R. Wennersten and A. Spitsyna

10.Reducing material use in passenger cars 1920–2020: Balancing energy, waste and safety E. Tempelman

11.Hydrogen: a stack of competing visions S. Bakker

12.Sustainable technologies for water treatment J. Morató, A. Pires Carneiro and A. Ortiz,

13.Dilemmas in water systems development in China X. Song and W. Ravesteijn

14.Conclusions: perceptions, paradoxes and possibilities K. Mulder, D. Ferrer, H. van Lente

What is Sustainable Technology?


31

Broadening the Innovation process in space and time


Levels of innovation

32

2000 2050

Effic

iency f

acto

r

5

20

Mejora del

proceso o

producto

Uso óptimo

Renovación

basada en

necesidades y

funciones

time 2000 2050

5

20

Process or

product

improvement

optimization

Systems renewal

based on needs

& functions

(Jansen,, 2003)


Implications

• Consider technology in its broadest sense (materials, organisation, infrastructure…)

• Involve stakeholders: – To recognise dilemmas

– To discuss values and interest, the engineer cannot decide on behalf of others

– Take care of quality debate in society

– Do not hide value- and interest discussions

• Allow radical solutions (never easy, opposed to established interests & lifestyles)

• Sustainability is never established forever – New threats might emerge and old ones dissappear


• There is no future if this is not sustainable

• But there is not one sustainable future, there are many!

• ‘healthy food’ vs. ‘healthy food habits’

• Such a thing as a inherently Sustainable Technology does not exist,

34


Contents

Engineering & Sustianability

1. Problems & Paradoxes

2. Possibilities

3. Conclusions


Can we learn sustainability in today’s engineering schools?


Can we learn football here?


SD in Eng Education (self-ranking) [Source: EESD-Observatory]


10 years of EESD Engineering Education in Sustainable Development

• 2002: TU Delft • 2004: UPC Barcelona • 2006: INSA Lyon • 2008: TU Graz • 2010: Chalmers, Göteborg • 2012: Kiev…

1. What should engineers learn on SD? 2. How to trigger change? 3. How to win the hearts and souls of the

faculty? 4. Starting new programs or changing

existing ones? 5. Active learning and project based

learning? 6. The role of external stakeholders, external

cooperation? 7. How to measure SD learning effects? 8. How to practice what we preach in the

campus? 9. How to teach normative content in an

academic context? 9 ?


A good engineer would not reinvent the wheel…


What should engineers learn on SD?

A) What the problems are

• Inter/transdisciplinarity, intercultural, intergenerational perspectives

• Active learning

B) How to solve them.

• No Such a thing as “sustainable technology”

• Process orientation vs product orientation



How to trigger institutional change within engineering schools: top-down or bottom-up?

Opposing views: • Disciplinarization of knowledge + hyper rational

culture of engineering create strong barriers for introducing change.

• Real change therefore needs to be enforced, and depends on soft un-engineering things like emotions, perceptions, group dynamics, motivations, leaderships...

• Structural + cultural

• Strong coupling between bottom-up and top-down initiatives, and that they have to be seen as co-evolving


How to trigger cultural change - how to win the hearts and souls of the faculty?

• From “Teach the teacher” to “ask the teacher”

• Lecturers invited to suggest contributions of their own (sub-) discipline to SD



Curriculum change: starting new programs or changing

existing ones?

• in-depth elective SD education programs can co-exist and are complementary with obligatory SD courses for all students.

• Besides basic knowledge on SD for every engineer (linked to its social responsibility), there is a need for SD engineering specialists.



The contribution of active learning and project based learning?

• Doing a project in a real life setting (e.g. like working in sustainability in a developing nation, in an NGO network or even within the university associations) can be a life changing experience for a student from an industrialized country.

• Segalas (2009, 2010 ) demonstrated that active learning is more effective in terms of learning interdisciplinary skills and systems thinking.

• However, it takes more resources, needs good contacts with external stakeholders and motivated staff that are trained in working in interdisciplinary groups.


How to measure SD learning effects?

• For SD, however, it is of crucial importance that students are able to think in systems, i.e. in connections between various elements, and in dynamic processes (that often involve long time frames).

• Conceptual maps were introduced as an appropriate method for evaluating SD understanding: they are graphic representations for organizing and representing knowledge.


Before

(Novak’s concept maps)

After


Practice what you preach: how to green the campus, diminish resource consumption and

sustainabilise procurement?

• Coherence in the main university functions and need to give example

• using campus greening as a real life setting for sustainability education, applying results of the university’s sustainability research and acting as an exemplar to transfer innovative solutions to society.


The role of external stakeholders, external cooperation?

• Highly motivating & educative • Relations between the university and the

external partner should be of a more permanent character.

• Educational projects cannot guarantee results for the commissioner and they should understand that learning is the primary goal.

• Interfacial structures between the university and other organisations have an important role.

• Not all subjects are fit for an educational project: subjects might be too political or commercially sensitive, or there might be too strict deadlines.


How to teach normative content in an academic context?

• It therefore seems that SD learning always needs to incorporate value controversial cases.

• Solutions should be developed in regard to different value systems.

• Awareness of values and value gaps is essential, especially in intercultural cooperation .


Can we learn sustainability in today’s engineering schools?


YES WE CAN; BUT SOME FIXING WORK IS NEEDED:



Transitions in 3D (Jansen 2003)

FRAMEWORK Cultura Estructura Tecnología

LEVEL Optimization Improvement Renewal

ACTORS Stakeholders involved


FRAMEWORK

LEVEL ACTORS

The dimensions of change of the University Knowledge subsystem

Intercultural dialogue Transdiciplinary structures

Rational + Intuition knowledge Learning Organisation

(transparency, participation & accountability)

Monoculture Disciplinary

Rational-centered

Stakeholders Participation Science-society interfaces

Extended peer-review

Peer-review Closed & endogamic

Academic-centerd Efficient technology Education about sustainability

Sustainable technology Sustainable education

Current Technical University (present situation)

Sustainable Technical University (future vision)


Resources: books


Resources: special issues


Conclusions


Start from the question:

what should be the role of engineers in the required sustainability transitions?

Envision


Avoid adding-on in a crowded curricula,

Rebuild it by taking the contribution of a field of expertise to SD as the leading principle for curricula

Start from your roots


Base SD learning on open, uncertain, transdisciplinary

and intercultural problems. Start using campus as a lab!

Connect students to the needs of your neighbouring communities and go beyond,

There is room for all:

we are all unsustainable!!!

Experience


SD as a societal learning process

universities should relearn to be learning organisations themselves and be able to transcend the rigid disciplinary fences.

Reinvent


Engineers & Sustainability ?

A critical question for the engineering community,

but also to society at large as we are convinced that committed and engaged engineers are crucial for our common future.


“A whole new way of thinking is needed in order to solve the problems we have created with the old way of thinking'”

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