Analysis of Current Trends in Sustainable Engineering Practices

This report provides an overview of current trends and solutions in sustainable engineering practices. It begins by defining sustainable engineering and its importance, followed by an exploration of sustainability factors in manufacturing, including policies and challenges. The report then delves into specific areas such as climate change solutions, renewable energy advancements, and sustainable food production methods. It highlights the role of international standards, cleaner production demands, and community expectations in driving sustainable development. The report also discusses the significance of eco-design, the transition to renewable energy sources, and the need for sustainable food practices. Finally, it addresses the complexities of defining and measuring sustainability, emphasizing the importance of indicators and the challenges in quantifying progress. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and emphasizing the role of sustainable development in supporting strong economic and social progress.

Running head: CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
Current trends and solutions using sustainable engineering practices
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1CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Objective..........................................................................................................................................2
Sustainability factors.......................................................................................................................3
Summary..........................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

2CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
Introduction
Sustainable engineering practices take the concept of environmental engineering to the
next level by looking interactions between ecological, technological, social as well as economic
system and through neglecting shifting of the issues from a place to another. The concepts of
sustainable engineering like life cycle thinking, industry ecology as well as sustainable system
engineering are considered as vital elements in education as well as work practice. Countries
across the world and their social, constructed as well as natural environments can demonstrate
emerging interdependencies considered in the process of planning as well as selection of
engineering products. In the present context, sustainable engineering practices in new
manufacturing procedures, extraction of materials, challenges in infrastructure, renewable
technologies as well as food production.
Objective
In manufacturing process, incorporating sustainability into products, procedures,
technology systems and services are considered as integration of environmental, economic as
well as social factors in evaluating design. The report has objectives as followed.
 To obtain a profound comprehension of holistic principles of industrial ecology,
risk management and sustainable production
 To comprehend environmental as well as sustainability frameworks on regional
and corporate sustainable development

3CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
 To gain knowledge regarding sustainability evaluation methods as well as tools
like life cycle evaluation, material flow analysis, input-output analysis and
environmental footprint
 To recommend solutions to overcome the issues like climate change, waste
management and low-carbon living
Sustainability factors
Sustainable factors in manufacturing process includes talking action to achieve target the
skills as well as approaches, which can facilitate changes throughout the organizations making
sure that levels of the employees are equipped in order to practice as well as contribute to make
sustainable operations (Sengupta et al. 2017). It is important for the organization to develop
specific policies that can be helpful to mitigate the sustainability factors. Organizations have an
important role for developing the rules and policies in the organizations. Several challenges and
scopes arise from increasing pressure in order to find sustainable development methods to
conduct business. The critical activity of making the manufacturing workforce by deploying
new technologies as well as lean manufacturing practices can be suggested as basic strategies in
encountering specific challenges. Hence, in order to maintain viability into future manufacturing
enterprises for developing new products, it is important to link with commitment as well as
innovative thinking. In 2007, the intergovernmental panel on climate change has released their
evaluation report. It consists of following.
 Warming of climate system is not equivocal.
 Human are generally causing warming experienced since 1950.

4CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
 Change in climate has possibility to the impact on people and environment like
important methods. Sustainable solutions become a basic concentration of the
governments as well as industries and communities across the world.
Carbon pollution minimization scheme in 2010 having the aim of minimizing emissions
of greenhouse gases is important to be considered as sustainability factors. Industry can compete
in the market in order to buy permits, creating an incentive for looking cleaner and less
expensive, and energy options (Kim et al. 2017). It presents a major challenge for manufacturing
industry sector. The organizations of manufacturing need to make integration procedures to
measure evaluate and enhance environmental performance in operations.
The imperative for having sustainable operations is critical as the key drivers for
sustainable manufacturing increase. The key drives can be described as followed.
 International standards and protocols is one of the major drivers that play an
important role. The protocol of United Nations Global for sustainability has
targets for controlling pollution, efficiency of resources as well as deep industrial
with economic and industrial restructuring.
 The demand for cleaner production is important in specific with imminent
deployment of carbon emissions schemes for trading (Kämpfer et al. 2017).
Hence, without making any changes in practice as well as behavior in
manufacturing enterprises is included in this.
 A community expectation of the effect of production and use of energy on
ecosystem is one of the main factors for sustainable development.

5CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
 Risks as well as liabilities related to investment are important for organizations
that are under greater security from the point of financial analysts.
The demands to be sustainable need to lead for new inventions in products as well
as process technologies and providing scopes for innovative enterprises.
Hearn and Shilston (2017) commented that there is confusion as well as conflict
regarding sustainable development as many people think that it is required to satisfy social,
economic as well as environmental targets. The desirable development in practice is the major
requirements in order to measure the level of sustainability. For the past years, the requirement to
introduce environmental demands into designing as well as development of the materials along
with products has become an important issue. Sustainable development project is important
within public as well as industrial materials as well as energy intensive. On the other hand, most
of the materials become waste quickly. In this perspective, it is important for the management of
natural resources as well as minimizing environmental impact of the particular materials as well
as manufacturing technologies is the major areas for giving importance. Eco-design directive can
ensure that manufacturers need to consider the use of energy and environmental impact at the
time of conception as designing phase of the product.
Clark (2017) mentioned that the fossils fuels are replaced by the renewable energy
sources. Many sustainable factors are involved in renewable sources of energy. With the
advancement of the renewable energy, the generation of technology receives a lot of attention in
the climate and energy consumption. The new technologies are not needed to make a dent in gas
emission in greenhouse which mainly comes from producing the electricity with the help of
fossil fuels like natural gas and coal. The storage of energy technology is needed to be developed
with all other technologies including the smart grid so that low fossil fuels are emitted from the

6CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
fossil fuels. The renewable factors can be retained thinking of power that comes from the
flowing water. If the water is pumped out through a machine that has many destinations, water is
not consumed in much quantity. This policy works similar with the electricity. The companies
involved in electric utility should generate enough amount of power so that all the consumers can
get sufficient amount of energy at same time. All the producers of electricity should monitor the
demand for the electricity so that there may be generation adjustment from all the sources
accordingly. Solar equipment works usually when the sun shines and the wind turbines depend
on the flow of air to work. The utilities of the above mentioned resources are more reliable than
other forms of generation like fossil fuels. In this was the renewable factors can be retained. In
spite of the advances that are made in the renewable technology, there are many such areas left
where there can be a great innovation to that the renewable resource can be used to reduce the
demand of fossil fuel and also reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. The sustainability of the
renewable resources can be retained by using the solar energy and the wind energy largely.
According to Kavazanjian, Andresen and Gutierrez (2017), food is very much essential
for the life to sustain. So, there are certain sustainability limits so that the food production can be
retained. Food plays an important role in cultural identity and also plays an important role in
economy. Sustainable food means using the food resource in such a way so that they will not
exceed the Earth’s capacity to replace them. The sustainability factors includes that there should
be organized small farmers and medium farmers which will also include the women farmers.
There should always be a focus on investment that is primary and recognizes that the organized
farmers will have particular role in many of the solutions. There can also be some terms like
human nutrition instead of using the term more production. This retains the production of food.
There should be high production rate with a healthy ecology that may not be mutually exclusive

7CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
and the research and policy should reflect those ecology. There should be impel innovation to
retain the food production and availability of different technologies should be available that is
suitable for different ecological contexts and socioeconomic contexts. The food system is
considered as a high complex system and is mainly driven by environmental factors, cultural
factors, and economic factors. The wastage of food should be reduced significantly to maintain a
sustainability in the food production. Diverting of food crops and the productive lands that are
used for bio-fuels should be avoided. Jones, Michelfelder and Nair (2017) stated that there
should always be a management of the food production and should be insisted on the intelligent
and the transparent measurement of all the results. This is because something that cannot be
measured cannot be managed also. Private institutions and public institutions are to be developed
so that they can get effective response to all their new goals. There should always be rewards to
the business systems producing food and they should always be motivated to increase their
productivity and maintain the sustainability factors involved in food production. Overall, the
food production can be retained by improved technical knowledge that impacts the environment
of food. There should be a food production is stimulating and proper promotion should be done
on the consumption of food. In policy of the food should be increased and the food waste should
be reduced.
However, sustainability generally guides principles or targets that are laid down by
United Nations on Environment and Development. On the other hand, controversy for making
proper definition of sustainability is a vital aspect. A process of changing in which exploitation
of resources, direction of investments as well as orientation regarding technical development is
included in this. Being unsatisfactory from standpoint of providing reflection on non-economic j
components of sustainability is considered in this. There is a growing number of analyzing the

8CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
questions of long-term sustainability of present trend. A leading advisory committee is required
in this aspect (Nogueira et al. 2017). There are several regions consisting of Europe, production
of foods is exceeding the limits of environment. Volatility in price, restriction in action as well as
interconnectedness of global markets of commodity is increasingly vulnerable of food
production systems for change in climate and loss of agro-biodiversity.
On the other hand, an important factor is considered as the use of renewable sources.
Reducing the utilization of such sources and emissions decrease costs of the process is included
in it. The difficulty is the way to quantify the level of supportability. The second law of
thermodynamics demonstrates that no innovative arrangement can prompt manageability. This
law infers that diminishing entropy in a framework must have outcome in a significantly more
noteworthy increment in entropy in the environment. There are two classes of measurements
being developed to show the state and execution of a framework: 1) content pointers— It
demonstrates the condition of a framework; 2) execution markers—It measures the conduct of a
framework and for the most part devoted of estimating of enhancing the maintainability qualities
of a framework. Many pointers have been proposed for use in deciding changes made to
materials creation and innovative procedures. In show disdain toward quantities of various
methodologies have been proposed to characterize the markers, there is still no institutionalized
procedure to empower a predictable correlation and recognizable proof of more manageable
alternatives. Before another pointer is proposed for estimation of supportability level, it is
imperative to comprehend markers that are as of now being used.

9CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
Summary
From the discussion, it can be summarized that the concept of sustainable development
can support strong economic as well as social development. Sustainable engineering or practices
need to be based on such principles supporting sustainable development. The forms of
engineering is considered as an interface between designs. In case of technology growth,
engineering or practices phase are linked to every level of technology readiness spectrum. The
principles of sustainable engineering need to be contemplated as well as applied ensuring that
development of technology as well as scale-up following the environment beginning route. It is
difficult to turn back for redoing as well as redesigning things from later stages. The principles of
sustainable engineering need to be taken into account in the process. The target of sustainable
engineering project benefits on aspects. However, there are several aspects of sustainable
engineering. Considering the entire system in which the particular object is used. Moreover, it
considers technical as well as non-technical issues synergistically. The demands of interacting in
different disciplines to the issue. Several principles of sustainable engineering and
environmental, economic as well as social poles. The policies and principles need to fulfill the
demands properly.

10CURRENT TRENDS AND SOLUTIONS BY SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
References
Clark, W.W. ed., 2017. Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook: Green
Engineering, Architecture, and Technology. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Hearn, G.J. and Shilston, D.T., 2017. Terrain geohazards and sustainable engineering in Ladakh,
India. Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, 50(3), pp.231-238.
Jones, S.A., Michelfelder, D. and Nair, I., 2017. Engineering managers and sustainable systems:
the need for and challenges of using an ethical framework for transformative leadership. Journal
of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.205-212.
Kämpfer, C., Seiler, T.B., Beger, A.L., Jacobs, G., Löwer, M., Moser, F., Reimer, J., Trautz, M.,
Usadel, B., Wormit, A. and Hollert, H., 2017. Life cycle assessment and sustainable engineering
in the context of near net shape grown components: striving towards a sustainable way of future
production. Environmental Sciences Europe, 29(1), p.27.
Kavazanjian, E., Andresen, J. and Gutierrez, A., 2017. Experimental evaluation of HDPE
geomembrane seam strain concentrations. Geosynthetics International, 24(4), pp.333-342.
Kim, K.Y., Psenka, C.E., Haapala, K.R., Schmidt-Jackson, K. and Okudan-Kremer, G.E., 2017.
Constructionism in Learning: Sustainable Life Cycle Engineering Project (CooL: SLiCE).
Nogueira, M., Enfissi, E.M., Valenzuela, M.E.M., Menard, G.N., Driller, R.L., Eastmond, P.J.,
Schuch, W., Sandmann, G. and Fraser, P.D., 2017. Engineering of tomato for the sustainable
production of ketocarotenoids and its evaluation in aquaculture feed. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 114(41), pp.10876-10881.

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Sengupta, D., Huang, Y., Davidson, C.I., Edgar, T.F., Eden, M.R. and El-Halwagi, M.M., 2017.
Using module-based learning methods to introduce sustainable manufacturing in engineering
curriculum. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 18(3), pp.307-328.