Description
The Brundtland Commission of the United Nations on 20th March 20th 1987 defined sustainability as: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Engineers will be in the frontline of the battle to overcome the challenges of creating a sustainable economy, but no single discipline will have the capability to tackle the problems alone. Sustainability is a multidisciplinary challenge, and engineers of the future will have to work collaboratively with a whole range of other stakeholders, such as scientists, politicians and financiers, if they are to be able to produce the practical and technological solutions required within the necessarily urgent time scales.
This unit is designed to support the Professional Engineering and Professional Engineering Management core units at Level 4 and 5. On successful completion of this unit the student with possess a wide range of knowledge and understanding of the issues and topics associated with sustainability and low carbon engineering.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this unit students will be able to:
1. Determine the nature and scope of the technical challenges of ensuring sustainable development.
The scope and social context of sustainability:
Sustainable development
Brundtland definition
Global demographics, trends and predictions
Population growth
Standard of living, actual and expected
Urbanisation and the balance of urban/rural space
Sustainable design
Environmental issues:
Climate change, planetary energy balance, carbon cycle science, the 20 C climate change obligation
Carbon capture and sequestration
Pollution, pollution prevention and management
Carbon trading
Eco-systems and habitat
Resources:
Food, water, energy and raw materials
2. Articulate the importance of collaborating with other disciplines in developing technical solutions to sustainability problems.
Systems thinking and socio-technical systems:
The politics and economics of sustainability
Kyoto Protocol
UN Climate Change Conference (COP)
European Union Emissions Trading Scheme
Sustainable infrastructures:
Low carbon transport systems
Sustainable cities
Green building
Power storage and distribution
Sustainable logistics
Waste and recycling
3. Evaluate the use of alternative energy generation techniques in relation to their contribution to a low carbon economy.
Alternative energy resources:
Nuclear, solar, wind, tidal and wave, geothermal, biomass and bioenergy
Whole life cycle costing
Precautionary principle
4. Analyse a variety of data sources to estimate the carbon footprint of a socio-technical scenario.
Types of carbon footprint:
Organisational
Value chain
Product
Carbon footprint science
Calculation methodologies: direct and indirect
System boundaries
Case study examples