Sustainable Engineering: Concepts, Design and Case Studies

Chapter 6. Case Studies

6.1. Introduction

General engineering design principles that promote sustainability have begun to emerge (Abraham and Nguyen, 2003; Anastas and Zimmerman, 2003; see Chapter 5 of this text). These principles give general design guidance to engineers, but the art and science of designing for sustainability have not yet matured to the point where there is a well-defined set of commonly applied calculation methodologies and mathematical tools.

This current state of development of engineering for sustainability can be compared to the evolution of other fields of engineering. Consider the case of chemical engineering, which emerged late in the 19th century as a field of applied or industrial chemistry (Peppas, 1989). Chemical ...