Environ. Sci. Technol. 2009, 43, 5558–5564
SHUTTERSTOCK/RHONDA SAUNDERS
Sustainability in Engineering Education and Research at U.S. Universities CYNTHIA F. MURPHY* DAVID ALLEN University of Texas, Austin BRADEN ALLENBY Arizona State University, Tempe JOHN CRITTENDEN Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta CLIFF I. DAVIDSON CHRIS HENDRICKSON H. SCOTT MATTHEWS Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Questionnaire results indicate that sustainable, or “green”, engineering is securing its foothold in U.S. academic programs. In December 2003, Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) published a special issue on the Principles of Green Engineeringsengineering for sustainability. Two dozen papers described approaches to evaluating the environmental footprints of products and processes, green design methods and case studies, and education reform. The papers were organized using a framework of 12 principles of Green Engineering (1), which paralleled the 12 principles of green chemistry identified by Anastas and Warner (2) and appear in Table 1. The papers reflected growth in engineering research and education addressing sustainability, driven by societal attention to environmental issues, and increased funding for research in sustainable engineering. After 5 years, it is reasonable to ask how well these principles of Green Engineering, or engineering for sustainability, have been incorporated into engineering education and research. To address this question, the Center for Sustainable Engineering (CSE), a collaborative initiative of the University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie Mellon University, and Arizona State University, benchmarked the extent to which sustainability concepts are being incorporated into the research and educational missions of colleges of engineering in the U.S. Although it is recognized that there are a number of sustainability efforts in the natural sciences and business schools, as well as stand-alone efforts in sustainability, this evaluation was limited to engineering programs for the scope of the analysis to be manageable and to facilitate inter-comparisons of programs. The primary focus of the benchmarking effort was the distribution and analysis of two questionnaires regarding sustainable engineering education. The first questionnaire 5558
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focused on development of sustainable engineering at the program level. It was sent to the heads of all academic units within the U.S. that included at least one Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) program. More than 1300 letters were sent out to department and program heads, and nearly 300 responses were received (a 21% response rate). A more detailed questionnaire was sent to 327 additional engineering faculty identified as sustainable engineering champions. The identification of these individuals was based on recommendations from department and program heads, 10-year publication records from technical journals that focus on issues of sustainability (such as the Journal of Industrial Ecology and Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy), and attendance at four separate workshops held by the Center for Sustainable Engineering in which >120 faculty members participated. A total of 137 valid responses from this smaller group were received, for a response rate of 43%. These results provide representation by at least one individual from 97 (27%) of all 365 U.S. institutions with engineering programs. Copies of both questionnaires are included in the Supporting Information (SI) for this paper. 10.1021/es900170m
2009 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 07/06/2009
TABLE 1. System Scales and Topics, and Associated Green Engineering Principles system size
topics(green engineering principle)
description
gate-to-gate
decisions made within a single facility or corporation by engineering and/or business units (i.e., site- or industrysector-specific activities)
process design, including material and/or energy reduction3,4 material or chemical selection9 product design for a single phase of a product’s life (e.g., design for recycling)9,11 pollution prevention2 media-based (i.e., air, water, solid waste) regulations1
cradle-to-grave
decisions made by different entities over the life of a product or sector activity; activities are typically analyzed as sequential events (i.e., life cycle analysis)
resource availability and economics12 consumer behavior5,8 product utility5,7,8 reuse and recycling options4,7,9,11 product based legislation (e.g., WEEE) and standards (e.g., ISO 14000) life cycle inventory development10
inter-industry (industrial symbiosis)
decisions made by two or more entities (corporations or other stakeholders), often involving multiple sectors; the analysis typically captures spatial as well as temporal effects and scales, although temporal scales may be compressed such that activities are presumed to occur in parallel (i.e., industrial ecology)
material flow analysis4,10
extra-industry
decisions made by multiple stakeholders, including industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policy makers, consumers, etc.
by-product synergy6,10 eco-industrial development10 multiple/nested LCA analysis6,10 input-output analysis (either physical or economic)10 policy development (current and historical) consumption patterns and preferences5,8 eco-industrial development10 multiple/nested LCA analysis6,10 input-output analysis (either physical or economic)10
1 Principle 1: Designers need to strive to ensure that all material and energy inputs and outputs are as inherently nonhazardous as possible. 2 Principle 2: It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it is formed. 3 Principle 3: Separation and purification operations should be designed to minimize energy consumption and materials use. 4 Principle 4: Products, processes, and systems should be designed to maximize mass, energy, space, and time efficiency. 5 Principle 5: Products, processes, and systems should be “output pulled” rather than “input pushed” through the use of energy and materials. 6 Principle 6: Embedded entropy and complexity must be viewed as an investment when making design choices on recycle, reuse, or beneficial disposition. 7 Principle 7: Targeted durability, not immortality, should be a design goal. 8 Principle 8: Design for unnecessary capacity or capability (e.g., “one size fits all”) solutions should be considered a design flaw. 9 Principle 9: Material diversity in multicomponent products should be minimized to promote disassembly and value retention. 10 Principle 10: Design of products, processes, and systems must include integration and interconnectivity with available energy and materials flows. 11 Principle 11: Products, processes, and systems should be designed for performance in a commercial “afterlife”. 12 Principle 12: Material and energy inputs should be renewable rather than depleting.
While the overall representation of engineering programs is 10% sustainable engineering focus; more than one-third have >25%. Benchmarking information on the content of the material in the courses was assembled and organized in a variety of ways. One way of organizing the information is to recognize different scales of design; four categories, representing different scales, were used. The smallest scale, referred to as gate-to-gate, addresses the design of processes and manufacturing of products (e.g., the design of an auto part). The next larger scale, referred to as cradle-to-grave, examines the entire life cycle of a product or process (e.g., the life cycle of a vehicle). At an even larger scale, the relationship between engineering designs and the infrastructures that support them (inter-industry, e.g., the roads and fuels that support vehicles) can be examined. A final scale, referred to as extra-industry, addresses the relationship between designs and social and cultural norms (e.g., the relationship between vehicle use and urban planning). Table 1 identifies these scales and gives examples of the types of topics covered at each scale. The topics identified in Table 1 are matched with the green engineering principles identified by Anastas and Zimmerman (1). All of the principles are represented along with some additional topics which are primarily at the inter-industry and extra-industry scales. Most of the focus of sustainable engineering courses reported in this benchmarking tends to be at the gate-togate or cradle-to-grave scales. More than three-quarters of courses cover at least some of the topics listed in Table 1 at these two scales. In contrast, half of the courses contain no content at the inter-industry or extra-industry scales, and consequently some sustainable engineering and green engineering principles (e.g., principles 6 and 10) are frequently not covered in engineering curricula. As shown in Figure 2, there is some variability among engineering disciplines in the coverage of topics. For example, general engineering programs are less likely to cover regulations targeted at specific environmental media, while chemical and materials engineering programs are more likely than other engineering disciplines to cover pollution prevention. Despite these differences, there is an overall trend among engineering programs to cover gate-to-gate and cradle-to-grave scales, and the principles of green engineering in their courses. The information on course content collected in the benchmarking effort can also be organized topically. Table 2 lists course themes that were identified by examining readings and texts associated with the courses. A full listing of the materials is available in the final report for the project (5). Energy and life cycle approaches emerge as particularly dominant themes, although more general system approaches and water resources are also common topical areas. More detail concerning the topics covered in sustainable engineering courses is provided by a group of course modules available through the CSE. The CSE has organized workshops to bring together faculty members who are developing courses or sections of courses on sustainable engineering. Participants who attended one of the CSE workshops were 5562
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TABLE 2. Themes Observed in Books and Readings
theme
no. of times dominant no. of if addressed, theme of times addressed % of time it reading or to a notable was dominant book degree theme
energy & power generation
84a
203a
41%a
LCA (life cycle assessment)
67a
148a
45%a
business & economics
39a
182a
21%
industrial ecology
38a
65
58%a
systems, metrics, & information management
38a
139a
27%
water
36a
71
51%a
industrial processes
33a
123a
27%
humanities (philosophy, ethics, history)
31a
109a
28%a
end of life and waste management
26a
98a
27%
design
22a
127a
17%
pollution prevention, fate & transport
22
80
28%a
transportation
20
58
34%a
policy
18
157a
11%
biogeochemical systems (incl. ecology)
16
77
21%
materials
16
69
23%
building & construction
15
45
33%a
urbanism and urban systems
14
36
39%a
climate change
13
62
21%
agriculture and land use
12
81
15%
natural resources
10
97a
10%
material flow analysis
6
16
38%a
human health
2
49
4%
a
Indicates top 10 in number of times the theme was addressed, number of times it was used as one of multiple themes, or the number of times it was the dominant theme.
required to submit a module to an electronic library linked to the CSE web site (4). Current and planned modules address LCA, ecological footprints, introductory sustainable engineering, green construction, water and air quality, renewable energy, metalworking fluids, climate change, public understanding of sustainable engineering, nanomanufacturing, infrastructure development, waste minimization, green materials, and sustainable design. These modules provide complementary, and in some cases, more detailed informa-
TABLE 3. Sponsored Research Themes, Ranked by Number of Projects
theme
rank of no. of projects no. of projects theme in with theme where theme is course dominant significant readings
energy & power generation
61a
77a
1
industrial processes
25a
42a
7
materials
22a
32a
15a
end of life and waste management
20a
26a
9
building & construction
16a
20a
16a
water
14a
22a
6
transportation
13a
20a
12
10
15
8
climate change
9
9
18a
human health
9
15
22a
pollution prevention, fate & transport
9
19
11
systems, metrics, & information management
9
24a
5
biogeochemical systems (including ecology)
4
9
14
industrial ecology
3
5
4
agriculture and land use
2
5
19a
business & economics
2
13
3
design
2
8
10
LCA (life cycle assessment)
2
19
2
material flow analysis
2
2
21a
urbanism and urban systems
2
4
17a
humanities (including education)
a
a Indicates top 8 dominant themes in projects and the 8 themes that were most commonly identified as a significant component of projects.
tion about content of courses than could be represented in benchmarking questionnaires.
Research Research funding in sustainable engineering is substantial. The benchmarking effort identified roughly a quarter of a billion dollars in funding. The dominant sponsor of this research is the NSF and consequently median project sizes (∼$300,000) and durations (36 months) follow NSF norms. The funding is concentrated in top tier institutions; more than half of the research funding is found at top 40 Ph.D. granting institutions. Student participation in these research programs is extensive: more than 500 graduate and roughly 400 undergraduate students are actively engaged.
As shown in Table 3, topical areas for research are heavily concentrated in energy and power systems. However, publication and other dissemination of results are not primarily directed toward energy conferences and journals; readers may not be surprised to learn that the two dominant journals that sustainable engineering researchers monitor and publish in are ES&T and the Journal of Industrial Ecology. The approaches that different institutions take in conducting sustainable engineering research can be categorized in the same manner as teaching in this area. Categories identified in the full benchmarking report include (1) integration of sustainable engineering concepts to evaluate or improve an existing infrastructure or industry sector, (2) development of technologies that will facilitate sustainable behavior and systems, (3) interdisciplinary efforts to address complex systems, and (4) sustainable engineering tool development and optimization.
Conclusion The progress of sustainable engineering is at a critical juncture. As documented in the benchmarking study and summarized in this paper, there is significant “grass-roots” activity in education and research related to sustainable engineering. While individual programs are well structured and course materials are addressing common themes and topics, there is little overall organization at a national level. The principles of green engineering (1), and recommended bodies of knowledge in sustainable engineering, such as those developed by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (6), provide frameworks for education and research. The path forward will require the development of a set of community standards for sustainable engineering. The benchmarking described here is an inventory of what is currently available and can serve as a resource as standards develop. All of the authors are founding members of the Center for Sustainable Engineering. Cynthia Murphy is a research associate with the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. David Allen is the Gertz Regents Professor in Chemical Engineering and director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. Brad Allenby is Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, a professor of civil, environmental, and sustainable engineering, and founding director of the Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management, at Arizona State University. John Crittenden is director of the Brook Byers Institute of Sustainable Systems at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Cliff Davidson is a professor of civil & environmental engineering and engineering & public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and is director of the Center for Sustainable Engineering. Chris Hendrickson is the Duquesne Light Company Professor of Engineering and codirector of the Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Scott Matthews is an associate professor in civil & environmental engineering and engineering & public policy at Carnegie Mellon and research director of the Green Design Institute. Please address correspondence regarding this article to
[email protected].
Acknowledgments The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through Grant Agreement X3-83235101, provided funding for this work. Although the research described in this article has been funded in part by the EPA, it has not been subjected to the Agency’s peer and policy review and therefore does not necessarily reflect the views of the agency, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Supporting Information Available Copies of the two questionnaires used to gather the data presented in this analysis. This information is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org. VOL. 43, NO. 15, 2009 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Literature Cited (1) Anastas, P. T.; Zimmerman, J. B. Design through the twelve principles of green engineering. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003, 37 (5), 94A–101A. (2) Anastas, P. T.; Warner, J. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice; Oxford University Press: London, 1998. (3) U.S. News & World Report. Best Colleges 2009: Premium Online Edition, Undergraduate Engineering Programs, 2008; accessed September, 2008 (available for a fee at http://colleges.usnews. rankingsandreviews.com/college/engineering).
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(4) The Center for Sustainable Engineering (CSE); www.csengin.org. (5) Allen, D.; Allenby, B.; Bridges, M.; Crittenden, J.; Davidson, C.; Hendrickson, C.; Matthews, S.; Murphy, C.; Pijawka, D. Benchmarking Sustainability Engineering Education; Final Report EPA Grant X3-83235101-0, 2008; available at www.csengin.org. (6) American Academy of Environmental Engineers. Environmental engineering body of knowledge summary report. Environ. Eng. 2008, 44 (3), 21–33.
ES900170M
