Engineering Sustainability

Running head: Engineering Sustainability
ENGINEERING SUSTAINABILITY
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Engineering Sustainability 2
1. INTRODUCTION
The article of investigation: ‘Sustainable cities? Australia’s building and planning rules
stand in the way of getting there’
The case study is on the article under the title ‘Sustainable cities? Australia’s building
and planning rules stand in the way of getting there,’ published on September 20, 2017
(Andréanne, Hurley, Susie & Trivess 2017). The article tries to examine the state of cities and
the current planning system that is blamed for not following the required environmental
sustainability. In addition, the article also indicates that currently upon examination of building a
show that building is not meeting the requirement for sustainable building. This is not
exceptional for that infrastructure since the planning of most of the Australian cities is not
properly done according to environmental requirement. The author tries to compare the planning
of cities with the UN Sustainable Development Goals showing that at the moment of writing the
article Australia was ranked 20th country in the world in terms of sustainability. Furthermore, the
authors try to evaluate the current sustainable building and planning frameworks to understand
the gaps that are there in the system leading to a failed system. The author finishes the article by
pointing out some system that needs to be changed in order to make the infrastructure
development sustainable.
The historical context of environmental sustainability is within the government
documents that were laid forth through research. The challenge of poor infrastructure

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development began due to increasing demand for housing and infrastructure within the country.
This necessitates the need for development of sustainable land use and infrastructure
development policies or framework. The development of these environmentally sustainable land
use policy that guides the construction and infrastructure development has little legislation as
identified by the New South Wales state (Dunmade 2013b).
The current sustainable context for the infrastructure challenge is engraved within the
statistic showing the impact of the built environment to sustainability. According to the author of
the article, build environment account for a third of greenhouse gas emission originates from the
built environment. Moreover, 12% of the energy use emanate from the built environment within
Australia as compared to 40% that forms the world index. The greenhouse emission within
Australia built environment on the other hand account for 13% and this shows the far that poor
environmental sustainable planning impact cities. Currently, the government of Australia has
tried to improve environmental planning through local government a system that does not work
given the low legislation framework. One example of a local government trying to institute
sustainable environmental planning is the government of Victoria. The body that is used by the
government called Council Alliance for Sustainable Built Environments (CASBE). The core
function of this body is to bring together engineering professionals within Australia to come up
with sustainable building and planning framework (Dunmade 2013a).
The future context of the sustainable indicates there is a need for better building design
and planning. There is a need for sustainable building policies that is coupled with sustainable
environmental land use. Future also points to advance the use of other sustainable building
practices that will help improve the sustainable environmental use. This will include a robust
government system that is easy to approve construction. The system will also be backed up with

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good government policies that reduce the impact of a political obstacle in sustainable
engineering practices (Rosen 2012).
The primary areas of investigation
The case study is about sustainable construction, environmental planning, infrastructure
development, and urban planning. Firstly, the article indicates that in terms of sustainable
construction, most of Australia cities are not sustainable. Most of the constructions are poorly
designed and planed making various environmental challenges. Secondly, environmental
planning within urban cities still falls short of standards as proposed by the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals (Dunmade 2014).
2. The objective of the investigation
The investigation brings to understanding the construction and infrastructure challenges
affecting sustainability and possible sustainable engineering solutions. The investigation analyses
the poor environmental sustainable development especially in construction and infrastructure
challenges that are presented in the article.
3. The factors facing sustainability
The author cites some of the factors that have resulted in the lack of sustainability of
Australian cities. Some of these factors human social factors, government factors, and
engineering factors. Firstly, human social factors that have led to challenges in sustainability
refers high cost of living that is driving many people to build houses without considering the
impact on the environment. The need for settlement also has because many people to build a
house with no proper approval and with poor planning. The high housing pressure that exists,
presents the need to develop more built environments to accommodate the ever-rising