Sustainability Lorrae van Kerkhoff Fenner School of Environment and Society

2 What do you think engineers can contribute to sustainability?

3 Sustainable development Development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. WCED, Our Common Future. OUP.

4 Limits to resources

5 Sustainable development Environment Economy Society

6 Sustainable development Environment Economy Society

7 “The future we want” Raworth, K A safe and Just Space for Humanity. Oxfam Discussion Paper. Rockstrom, J., W. Steffen, et al. (2009). "A safe operating space for humanity." Nature 461(7263):

8 “The currently observed changes to the Earth System are unprecedented in human history. Efforts to slow the rate or extent of change – including enhanced resource efficiency and mitigation measures – have resulted in moderate successes but have not succeeded in reversing adverse environmental changes. Neither the scope of these nor their speed has abated in the past five years.”

9 Technology and sustainability Paul EhrlichJulian Simon “It cannot be overemphasized that no changes in behaviour or technology can save us unless we can achieve control over the size of the human population.” The Population Bomb. Are we now "in crisis" and "entering an age of scarcity"? …almost without exception, the relevant data - the long-run economic trends - suggest precisely the opposite… that natural resources have been becoming less scarce over the long run, right up to the present The Ultimate Resource II: people, materials and environment.

10 “Technology offers a continually, if unevenly, expanding domain of increasing human control and power in the world, and in the process technology continually transforms the natural and social worlds.” Allenby and Sarewitz, The Techno-human Condition. Cambridge MA, MIT Press.

11 Which technology is currently contributing MOST to sustainability?

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13 Why the i-phone? Level I: it’s a phone Level II: it’s a new technology network Level III: it’s transforming livelihoods for poor farmers Allenby and Sarewitz, The Techno-human Condition. Cambridge MA, MIT Press.

14 Is it? Really?

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16 Level III technology: Earth system “… a complex, constantly changing and adapting system in which human, built and natural elements all interact in ways that produce emergent behaviors which may be difficult to perceive, much less understand and manage.” (Allenby and Sarewitz, p.63)

17 Level III technology: Earth system Co-evolutionary Technological clusters Transformative Unpredictable

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19 Sustainability Technology is key But has a wide range of unpredictable consequences

20 Sustainability – implications for technology Flexibility, learning, nimbleness: -No ‘solutions’ -Option spaces, scenarios: prepare for the unexpected -Reduce technological lock-ins -Continual learning -Do not confuse economic efficiency with social and ecological efficiency