1. Materials Storyboard Resources are required and wastes are produced at each stage in a material’s life cycle Awareness of facts: Assessing material performance for sustainability requires a life cycle view Main point Materials are essential for human activity; they must be produced, used, and disposed of through sustainable alternatives to current industrial-era practices. Awareness of personal role: We all play a part in the impact that materials have in the global system Awareness of strategies: High-impact materials interventions can occur by expanding the design boundaries Professionally Life cycle assessment Individually Through design choices Risk Assessment Biomimicry Assessment Methods Systemic innovations Conservation Approaches Whole systems design Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Through daily choices Resources are finite in a closed thermodynamic system This work was made possible in part by the National Science Foundation Grant DUE#0717428 | Jane Qiong Zhang and Linda Vanasupa Materials have geopolitical profiles that should be considered in design

2. Materials Materials introduction

3. Materials System Boundary Conceptually “separates” the system and surroundings A closed thermodynamic system The earth system 3 E Can exchange energy but not enough mass to affect its thermodynamic state Classroom Activity (5 minutes) In a closed thermodynamic system, is the amount of any given material variable or fixed?

4. Materials Our Earth: A Closed Thermodynamic System Activity (2 minutes) Identify the sources and sinks for materials used in our economy, which sits wholly within a closed, thermodynamic system? Do the same for energy. 4

5. Materials Reliance on non-renewables Classroom Activity (5 minutes) Is it a problem to be dependent upon non-renewable materials? Why or why not? Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

6. Materials Materials life cycle : The industrial Era Inputs: feedstocks, energy and water Outputs: waste, heat, toxins Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

7. Materials Materials engineering Materials performance for sustainability Structure/composition Properties Processing Embedded energy Embedded water? Environmentally just practices? Life cycle toxicity? Geopolitical nature of acquiring it? Human rights profile of materials? Classroom Activity (5 minutes) In the 1500’s, sugar, a labor-intensive crop, was in such high demand as a global commodity that those wanting to profit began purchasing slaves. The slave market grew. Were the product’s (sugar) consumers, supporting slavery? To what extent are engineer’s violating human rights if they design something that inherently requires human rights violations in its manufacture?

8. Materials Engineer’s Creed As a professional engineer, I dedicate my professional knowledge and skill to the advancement and betterment of human welfare. I pledge: To give the utmost of performance; To participate in none but honest enterprise; To live and work according to the laws of man and the highest stands of professional conduct; To place service before profit, the honor and standing of the profession before personal advantage, and the public welfare above all other considerations. In humility and with need for Divine Guidance, I make this pledge. National Society of Professional Engineers, June 1954

9. Materials Annual global usage-2005 Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

10. Materials Global materials usage by mass-2005 Ceramic use mostly concrete Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

11. Materials Materials reserves Find five resources that are likely to run out first. What assumptions do you expect are in the computation of the number of years? Activity with permission of David Cohen/ New Scientist

12. Materials Reserves v. Resources Classroom Activity (5 minutes) What makes something “profitable” or “unprofitable?” Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth- Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

13. Materials Assessing Impact

14. Materials Assessment overview Types Approaches Goal Impact Assessment Life Cycle Assessment Full LCA Streamlined LCA Economic Input-output Risk

15. Materials Risk Assessment Risk = Hazard x Exposure Classroom Activity (5 minutes) A principle of green engineering is to design products and processes with materials that are inherently benign. How does that design principle the risk equation?

16. Materials Life Cycle Assessment Life Cycle Assessment: a concept and methodology to evaluate environmental effects of a product or activity holistically, by analyzing whole life cycle of a particular product, process, or activity (U.S. EPA, 1993). Ecoindicator - performance metric with multiple factors yields

17. Materials Life Cycle Assessment concept o Inventories inputs and outputs of product or process life cycle; o Converts inventory to impact in categories (e.g. global warming, acidification, aquatic toxicity, human health); o Applies value-based weighting of categories to compute a single impact number (Ecoindicator).

18. Materials The Natural Step System Conditions Nature is not subject to systematically increasing: Concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust (SC1); Concentrations of substances produced by society (SC2); Degradation by physical means (SC3); And, in that society… People are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs (SC4)

19. Materials The Five Capitals Approach The Five Capitals is an idea developed by The Natural Step (TNS) Streamlined LCA (TNS Framework) Raw materials Production Packaging and distribution Use and peripherals End-of-life SC1 SC2 SC3 SC4 Rating : Good, Quite Good, OK, Quite Bad, Bad, Don’t Know

20. Materials Economic Input Output LCA Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute. (2012) Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) US 2002 (428) model [Internet], Available from: [Accessed 13 Aug, 2012] aggregated outputs $1 M Leather goods aggregated inputs

21. Materials Sustainable Design Strategies

22. Materials Strategies Overview Design Assess Target: Reduce “bad” Physical StrategiesRelational Strategies Expand system boundaries Redefine goals Design principles for inherent “good” materialsprocessgoalsintent

23. Materials Sustainability: Daly Rules use rate < regeneration rate Renewable resources: Non-Renewable resources: Pollutants: Metric tons year  consumed regenerated consumed Substitution by renewables emitted Detoxified and absorbed by natural systems Rules for Sustainability of Natural Resources 23 Metric tons year Metric tons year Metric tons year Metric tons year Metric tons year  

24. Materials Conservation approaches 1. Reduce 2. Reuse 3. Recycle Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

25. Materials Expand the design boundaries Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

26. Materials High impact interventions: expand system boundary System boundary A System boundary B System boundary C Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

27. Materials I = P x A x T Another view of expanding design domain Impact = Population x Economic Good population Pollutant Economic good x Class Activity (5 minutes) Consider global population projections. If we continue with business as usual, using industrial-era technologies and practices, what is likely to be the impact trend, using the IPAT relationship?

28. Materials Impact = Population x Economic Good population Pollutant Economic good x Considering multiple factors

29. Materials Biomimicry The natural ecosystem Uses few elements (mainly C, N, O and H) Is cyclic Subsystems have evolved that use “waste” as a resource Closed loop-no waste; each subsystem provides sustenance for others Indicator of well-being = equilibrium The Industrial System Uses most of the periodic tableIs linear Lack of subsystems that use “waste” as a resource Open loop; waste destructive of sources on which it depends Indicator of well-being = growth Adapted from M. Ashby, 2009. Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Materials Choice. Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, NY. Used with permission.

30. Materials Alternative measures of progress USA Gross Domestic Product v. Genuine Progress Indicator Class Activity (5 minutes) Since the mid-1900’s, countries have been using GDP as an indicator for “progress” and “prosperity.” What is left out of the GDP as a measure of prosperity? Graphic Source: https://www.facingthefuture.org/, Used with permissionhttps://www.facingthefuture.org/