The engineer and
the environmentalist
Engineering and environmental
sustainability don’t have to be
mutually exclusive. UCL’s Dr
Carla Washbourne and Dr Jenny
McArthur look at how a more
holistic engineering mindset will
be key to addressing our 21st
century challenges.
Susta i n a b i l i t y
The infrastructure sector
is tasked with responding
to huge societal and
environmental challenges.
It is a crucial piece of
the puzzle in our eff orts
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.
Engineering as a discipline exists
in the service of people. Historically,
engineers have used our technical
skills in shaping the world to the
benefi t 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 confl ict, or can we develop a more
holistic approach to engineering for
complex 21st century challenges?
April 2020 / www.theengineer.co.uk 40
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
Modern engineering is still
dominated by signifi cant use of
water, energy and material resources.
Internationally, large construction
projects make extensive use of concrete,
steel and glass, without signifi cant
discretion to the environmental context
of building form or materials.
Engineering retains an inclination
to create artifi cial 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 quantifi ed and exchanged.
Environmental sustainability depends
“many accepted engineering
approaches have negative impacts
on the environment“
/www.theengineer.co.uk