SET721 Sustainable Engineering: Current Trends and Critical Analysis

This report provides a critical analysis of current trends and solutions in sustainable engineering, focusing on the concept of sustainability and its various factors, including environmental, economic, and social sustainability. It examines the critical factors that organizations face in achieving sustainability, such as prioritizing environmental sustainability over poverty and the importance of qualitative growth over purely economic growth. The report emphasizes the significance of commitment to improvement, stakeholder engagement, and leveraging sustainability in the supply chain. Furthermore, it discusses present sustainable practices adopted by organizations, including energy conservation through measures like switching off electrical appliances and utilizing solar panels, as well as alternative transportation methods like providing employee pick-up and drop-off services and promoting carpooling to reduce fuel consumption and air pollution. The report concludes by highlighting the need for organizations to tackle critical issues effectively and adopt measures that provide more benefits than drawbacks, contributing to a more sustainable environment.

Running Head: ENGINEERING SUSTAINABILITY
ENGINEERING SUSTAINABILITY
Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Objective......................................................................................................................................2
Sustainability factors...................................................................................................................2
Critical factors.............................................................................................................................4
Summary..........................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Sustainability is a complex concept which keeps changing and evolving similar to the
development of design and business (Le Blanc 2015). Teams those are responsible for designing
the innovation as well as developing them is trying to expand the provided definition of
sustainability in order to introduce numerous strategies as well as amenities which help in
promoting a better life for people. It also helps in improving the performances as well as
operations of organizations. Most of the outcomes of advanced sustainability occur when human
labor and technology are integrated. These two factors are supported with the help of designing
various processes by combining analysis, benchmarking, modeling, alignment, research creative
visioning, education and marketing (Kates 2018). This report discusses regarding various
articles that have described about facts or processes that lead to sustainability of organizations.
The steps adopted by the organizations in order to maintain a sustainable environment.
Discussion
Objective
The main objective of this report is to examine the given case study on the basis of the
concept of sustainability. It also highlights the critical factors related to the sustainability of
environment. One more objective includes the speculation of current practices and examine how
important or helpful they would be in long run.
Sustainability factors
Sustainability can be defined as the ability of any organization or even an individual to
continue a specific behavior indefinitely. Some examples of these behavior include

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environmental sustainability which is defines as the capacity to maintain a particular rate of
usage of non renewable resources and use the renewable ones more (Barkemeyer, Holt and
Preuss 2014). These activities would reduce the level of carbon foot print, pollution. It also does
not let non renewable resources to extinct and save it for future use. This can be done by an
organization and an individual as well. It is not necessary that only big organizations can follow
them and bring a change but an individual can also bring about little change in the environment.
One more type of sustainability includes economic sustainability. The environment sustainability
and economic sustainability are directly proportional to each other. Economic sustainability can
be brought about if measures are taken for sustaining the environment (Carley and Christie
2017). Suppose the usage of renewable energy resources like sunlight, water energy and many
more would help the organizations to contribute in economic sustainability as well. Reducing the
usage of renewable resources would help in reducing the cost incurred in purchasing them as
well. Social sustainability is also as a part of sustainability which can be defined as the capacity
of the social system like country to act at a definite level of well being of society indefinitely.
These are the main there pillars of sustainability.
The sustainability that has been defined above actually is against the provided norms of
sustainability (Weaver, Jansen and Van 2017). Sustainability development can be defined as a
development which ensures that the recent needs would be met without any compromise of the
previous needs. The introduction of new needs and meeting them would not affect the previous
ones. Both will be met with equal priority. It also does allow the compromise of the capacity of
the future generations to meet the needs as well. Main key concepts of sustainable development
include the concept of various needs (Charles, Schmidheiny and Watts 2017). These needs can
be defined as the basic needs of people, this needs should be considered as the utmost priority

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because basic needs are the ones that needs to be met first and then comes other needs or wants
(Charles, Schmidheiny and Watts 2017). The next key concept includes the ides of imposing
limitations by the concept of technology as well as social organization on the ability of
environment of meeting present as well as future needs.
Critical factors
The definitions of sustainability environment have numerous traps which do not prove
them the best (Liu, Oza and Hogan 2016). The main problem is that which factor should be
considered as the top priority.
 Is poverty more essential than environment sustainability: The main answer to
this is that of the problem of environment sustainability is not solved, it is
impossible to solve any other problem (Sachs 2015). This is because of the
catastrophic collapse. If the problem of poverty is not solved then it would change
the world. Poverty has been lasting since the existence of humans but in this case
the problem of environment sustainability is very new and it has the ability to
threat then existence of people or any other species on earth (Sachs 2015). This is
the reason that the poverty does not deserve to be the extreme priority but the
environment sustainability deserves to be the priority.
 Development in most of the countries is defined as their economic growth
especially in the counties that are still developing (Clark, Tomich and Van
Noordwijk 2016). They target in growing their revenue and not decrees the
problem faced by the countrymen. This makes the problem of sustainability even
worse because the economic system is always unsustainable. Development should
mean the development in quality as well as quantity, this means that in order to be

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developed just increasing the revenue is not enough, along with that it should be
noticed that the countrymen are leading a good life and not facing any major
problem due to the whereabouts of the country (Clark, Tomich and Van
Noordwijk 2016). Qualitative growth is very sustainable; whereas quantitative
growth can never be sustainable once the limit is crossed.
Some critical factors for the journey of environment sustainable are mentioned below.
 A commitment to the improvement: the commitment to improve can be referred
to with the help of a quotation “What gets measured is what gets improved.”
(Wheeler and Beatley 2014). This can be defined as among the main practice of
any organization. If anything has to be changed, it should be committed first and
then the activities performed to bring about the change should be measured or
monitored. This would ensure that the process is going well. If measuring or
monitoring is not done and no records are kept, there would not be any proof of
the development (Wheeler and Beatley 2014). The monitoring or measuring
would also help in identifying the areas that need improvement. It would help in
finding out the loopholes in the procedure and find out ways to solve them.
 A commitment to the engagement: In a particular project of environment
sustainability, the stakeholders involved in the company or project should be
engaged (Bendell 2017). This is considers as the leading attributes in the process
of attaining a successful program of sustainability. Organizations should also
commit that a collective intelligence of various employees of their organization

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would be considered. This would provide a competitive advantage to the
organization in the process of optimizing and indentifying the areas of
sustainability (Nilsson, Griggs and Visbeck 2016). This would as a result provide
best results and impacts to the organization. So this point depicts that commitment
of engaging the stakeholders as well as employees would not only help the
organization in attaining their goal of sustainability but also make them feel
important and they would feel that the employees are valued like the stakeholders
(Nilsson, Griggs and Visbeck 2016). Early as well as very deep engagement
would help the organization in providing the energy and foundation the
realization of the economic and environmental benefits of a particular sustainable
program that is progressing. Improving the engagement of stakeholders would
create more improvements on the sustainability (Nilsson, Griggs and Visbeck
2016). It would also ensure that the employees are involved in the process and
continuously thinking about sustainability not only in their workplace but also
their own life.
 Commitment to leverage: the sustainability of leverage in an organization’s
supply chain in some areas like logistics, circular economy and eco design would
help in creating a win solution across various factors like customer satisfaction,
improving the efficiency of numerous operations, reduction of carbon footprint
and reducing costs.
Practices for sustainable development have been adopted and is very common in
numerous organizations. Adopting the measures for sustaining the environment helps the

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organizations to contribute in betterment of the environment (Welford 2016). Some present
sustainable practices are as follows. Corporate companies provide enough efforts for integrating
sustainability in their businesses. Attaining various factors of sustainability would not only help
the organization in contributing their efforts towards the environment but it also improves their
brand image in front of common people (Weber, Diaz and Schwegler 2014). Sustainability also
helps the employees in the organization to lead a good life and implement the ways of
sustainability in their personal lives as well.
 Energy conservation: Various organizations have taken numerous measures in
order to support energy conservation. Conservation of energies especially
electricity acts as a major factor in sustainability of environment (Weber, Diaz
and Schwegler 2014). Most of the organizations follow some policies that help
them in conserving energy. For example it has been seen that after the working
hours of a company all the electrical appliances still work or are kept on. This has
been avoided by many (Weber, Diaz and Schwegler 2014). Organizations have
tries taking efforts in conserving energy by conveying it to everyone that the
electrical appliances should be switched off when the employees leave the room
for some purposes or their working shift is over (Weber, Diaz and Schwegler
2014). One more important step taken by the organization is the adoption of solar
panels for producing electricity and not any other sources. Solar energy is a
renewable source of energy and it is unlimitedly available. As a result it is used by
the organizations in conserving electricity (Holden, Linnerud and Banister 2017).
Installing solar panels as a source of electricity is one of the newest methods and

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have proved to be contributing a lot in sustainability of environment. Though
many organizations can not invest the capital for installation of solar panels
because besides being very helpful, it is very expensive (Holden, Linnerud and
Banister 2017). The installation of solar panels is mostly common in
organizations; it is not very common in individual residents. This would help a lot
in the upcoming future because it would reduce the usage of electricity and help
in preserving it for other purposes. Though installing solar panels would not be
possible by every resident in the city but conserving energy by using methods like
switching of the electrical appliances like fan, lights and many more when not in
use can be adopted.
 Alternative transportation: Alternative transportation means the usage of other
means of transportation instead of personal vehicles (Hák, Janouková and Moldanš
2016). Many organizations have taken the step of providing their employees the
facility of pick up and drop. This is applicable for almost all the employees except
the ones that live very near to the organization (Hák, Janouková and Moldanš
2016). This helps the organization as well as employees to contribute in reducing
the usage of fuels and creating air pollution. If all the employees of an
organization travel through different means of transportation it would consume
more fuel and cause air pollution (Hák, Janouková and Moldan 2016). In order toš
reduce this, car pool system has been introduced which helps people to travel to
their destination by using public transport.

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Summary
From the above report it can be discussed that there are various critical issues that
organizations face during the sustainability. These factors are required to tackle in a proper way
and adopt measures that provide benefits more than headaches. This report also discusses
regarding the practices that are adopted by most of the organizations weather governmental or
nongovernmental. These measures have been proved to be helpful not only in the present but
also in long run. The sustainability of environment by measures such as energy conservation,
recycling and many more would help in conserving the non renewable energy resources for the
upcoming generation.

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References
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Bendell, J., 2017. Terms for endearment: Business, NGOs and sustainable development.
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Carley, M. and Christie, I., 2017. Managing sustainable development. Routledge.
Charles Jr, O.H., Schmidheiny, S. and Watts, P., 2017. Walking the talk: The business case for
sustainable development. Routledge.
Clark, W.C., Tomich, T.P., Van Noordwijk, M., Guston, D., Catacutan, D., Dickson, N.M. and
McNie, E., 2016. Boundary work for sustainable development: Natural resource management at
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Hák, T., Janouková, S. and Moldan, B., 2016. Sustainable Development Goals: A need forš
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of Sustainable Development: Needs, Justice, Limits. Routledge.
Kates, R.W., 2018. What is sustainable development?.

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