CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING and
MATERIAL SCIENCES ENGINEERING
on Friday, November 18, at 2 pm in Olsson 120
Braden Allenby, PhD
Founding Director, Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management
Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Engineering
Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Sustainable Engineering
Professor of Law
Arizona State University
The Challenge of Sustainable Engineering
There is growing interest in sustainability and sustainable engineering among professionals, clients, stakeholders, and the public. While the concept is unquestionably popular, it is also ill-defined, and frequently misunderstood, often because it fails to adequately engage with issues of emerging technologies, and the complexity, uncertainty, and contingency that they create. This leads to a difficult dilemma for engineers and technologists: although sustainability cannot be responsibly ignored, neither can it be defined so that it can easily be integrated into engineering and design decisions. Responding to this challenge will require significant enhancement of current engineering, policy, management, and planning practices and frameworks.
