Green Engineering

Survivability vs sustainability. I first came across this juxtaposition when digging into the real scoop behind Toyota’s success. The survival of the company in a weakened post-war economy was the motivating force in the early days, but this leitmotiv has survived the complacency fog of success to tap into an even more encompassing, yet equally primal urge of surviving as a company in an ever weakening global economy. Toyota has stayed clear of the political tangle of the global warming debate, choosing instead to commit its resources to an unquestioned future resource – the sun. This renewable resource is inextricably linked with human life and will thus always be available to fuel our cars – regardless of whether petroleum will or not.   Ultimately, survivability is sustainability.

Just recently, I again came across the word survivability, this time as the “revised and updated” concept beyond sustainability. (The Meaning of the 21st Century, James Martin). Mr. Martin contends that we have passed the point of being able to sustain the current levels of resource consumption, and are now needing solutions which will reverse the trend to hopefully get us through that bottleneck in the future where the escalating line of consumption will veer close to the decreasing line of material resources. The outcome is as yet very uncertain.

The Story of James Martin

When faced with such global crisis in the past, for example, a smallpox epidemic, our solution has been to inoculate against the disease. In other words, we didn’t just focus on healing the sick – but in preventing future episodes. What if we could take this same approach with our current problems? Interestingly, this is another of Toyota’s secrets to success – employees learn to identify causes of problems, and then start looking for potential causes for improvements which will entirely avoid future problems. These "problems" are not viewed in a negative manner (ie don’t tell the boss, can’t report this or it will look bad), rather as a catalyst for an opportunity for improvement at the root cause level. There is a lot of thinking going on over there.

Getting back to the world of construction, how do we change from our risk-averse, silo-centric, lawsuit happy culture to one who seeks continuous improvement and respect for humanity, or in the broader sense – the entire planet? Can we get beyond sustaining the status quo, really dig in and find solutions to our core problems, and then "innoculate" against future problems? Can construction become part of the sustainability/ survivability solution?

Just how does one change a culture - such as construction? The change agent needs to be someone who is well respected, whose word is generally accepted, and who is involved in most projects. … Lest I hurt any fealings, let me just say that architects and contractors didn’t quite fit the bill – but … the engineers… The very word means to make something. And whether you agree or not, it is difficult to argue with engineers because they bring solid - well “engineering” - to a project, and unless you can refute like with like, then concessions are in typically in order. ( mind you, I am just reporting cultural norms here – not taking sides – and my own personal opinions on this matter remain outside this blog..)

So this finally brings me to the concept of “Green Engineering.” This concept is being taught in our Engineering program, and presumably in campuses around the world. The US EPA has even thoughtfully provided us with a definition - which merits reading, and a textbook. Briefly, green engineering is the making of something (products and processes), within the normal constraints (forces of gravity, available dollars, influential business partners) AND - here is the change - minimizing overall environmental impact over the entire product/project life AND meeting the constraints of humanity and society. Defacto, this leads engineers back into being solution finders, vs problem solvers, with the overarching “constraint” - or goal - is that of the survival of the earth.

Brilliant. So now we have the proper vaccine, we have the identified population, and the rest of us can put some muscle into the political will and social push for “green engineering.” Unlike scientists, or politicians, or policy makers, or environmentalists - who could possible refute “green engineering?”