[MUSIC PLAYING]
Humanity is facing a crisis.
If we continue on our current path of over-consumption
of products and services, Earth will run out of resources,
thousands of species will be driven to extinction,
and our planet's climate will be dramatically altered.
So how do we prevent devastation from occurring?
How do we meet the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs?
As we saw in our previous video, it's
evident that improving a product's
environmental footprint, or eco-efficiency,
is not enough to solve the problem.
We need to move away from the idea of trading off
the three interacting dimensions-- that
is, the environment, the economy, and society.
This triple bottom line approach will not
address the sustainability crisis.
Therefore, our concept of sustainability
needs to change from relative to absolute.
Understanding the drivers of impact.
Environmental impact, or I, can be represented mathematically
as a function of population, affluence, and technology.
In the field of sustainability, this
is known as the IPAT equation. That
is, I equals P times A times T. An engineer's involvement falls
within the domain of developing technologies.
However, as we've already seen, improvements
made in the technology area may be wiped out
because of the population growth and the associated affluence
growth.
In addition, it's well-known that affluence and technology
are coupled, meaning the eco-efficient technologies we
have developed have led to us using them
in greater numbers and larger physical sizes,
as we previously saw in the examples of LED lights and LCD
TVs.
Therefore, there's a need for a stronger definition
of sustainability, one that respects
the planetary boundaries and other species on Earth.
This can be achieved by using a sustainability
model in which our society and its economy
are nested inside Earth's life support system.
The role of engineers.
We need to understand the challenge ahead of us.
To begin with, the United Nations' sustainability goals
have been introduced as a target.
We also need to understand the magnitude of the challenge.
First, let's revisit the IPAT equation and rewrite it
as impact equals population-- the number of people--
multiplied by affluence-- the number of products per person--
multiplied by technology-- the environmental impact
per product.
According to the UN, the world's population
is predicted to reach 11.2 billion in the year 2100
and will level off shortly thereafter.
Material standards of living will grow strongly
in newly industrialised countries
such as China and India.
However, environmental impact has already
exceeded sustainable levels in many dimensions,
such as greenhouse gas emissions.
So what exactly is the challenge?
It turns out that in order to counterbalance
for the expected growth in population and affluence,
the technology factor or environmental impact
per product must decrease by a factor of up to 20.
Life cycle engineering.
We need a new engineering paradigm,
or to develop new products and product technologies-- hence,
life engineering, or LCE, a set of sustainability-oriented
product development activities within the scope of one
to several product life cycles.
The aim of these activities is to achieve sustainable
manufacturing in order to fulfil the needs
of both present and future generations
without exceeding the boundaries of Earth's life support
systems.
A product's life cycle concerns everything
from its design, manufacturing process, after-sales usage,
and end-of-life.
In order to initiate life cycle engineering,
a framework is first introduced.
The main aim of the framework is to position life cycle
engineering in relation to sustainability
and other disciplines.
The framework has two main dimensions, namely,
the scope of environmental concern
and the scope of temporal concern,
represented on the y and x-axes, respectively.
Sustainable development can be represented
in this graph as an overarching platform
with a focus on societies on the environmental scale
and human generations on the temporal scale.
For instance, industrial ecology as a discipline
can be represented in this graph within the scope of economies
and human generations.
In this context, concepts such as the circular economy
and industrial symbiosis are also represented at this level.
However, these are all top-down concepts.
And although they are relevant, it's not the core function
of what industrial organisations do as part of their operations.
Below industrial ecology is life cycle management,
a bottom-up approach which encompasses
the scope of one company and a generation of products.
Life cycle management is a business management approach
that can be used by all types of businesses and organisations
to improve their products and services,
and thus the sustainability performance of the companies
and associated value chains.
Similar to life cycle management, life cycle
engineering is a bottom-up approach.
As a function of an industrial organisation,
it sits in the middle of the framework with the scope
of environmental concern of one or multiple products
on the y-axis and the scope of temporal concern of one
or multiple products on the x-axis.
Life cycle engineering allows us to develop products
and services like taking into account volume growth
and technology changes in order to systematically reduce
their environmental impact along each stage of their life cycle.
This ensures that any problems concerning
environmental sustainability do not shift from one life cycle
stage to another.
Life cycle engineering promotes a long-term solution
by addressing the sustainability problems at their root cause.
This is particularly important during the designing
of a product where up to 80% of its environmental footprint
is determined.
By using the tools of life cycle engineering,
we can identify areas for improvement in the product's
life cycle, and ultimately develop environmentally
sustainable products.
The most common life cycle engineering tools
and techniques include eco-design, life cycle
assessment, life cycle costing, and material flow cost
accounting.
Such tools allow for the quantification
of the environmental impacts of products
and their associated costs in order
to identify the highest improvement
potential along the product life cycle, also known as hotspots.
For example, if a product's main footprint
is during the manufacturing phase
as a result of excessive energy consumption,
the same product can be re-engineered by developing
alternative manufacturing processes that
require less energy input, thus reducing
the product's associated environmental impact.
But what is the role of life cycle engineering
in the use phase after a product has
been designed and manufactured?
By employing tools such as eco-labelling
and eco-profiling, customers can be encouraged to buy more
environmentally friendly products or minimise
their energy and water consumption after purchase.
Finally, at the end of their life cycle,
products need to be managed in an environmentally friendly
manner.
For this to happen, products need
to be designed with an end-of-life view.
Therefore, life cycle engineering
tries to develop products that are easy to collect, separate,
reuse, re-manufacture, and recycle in order
to reduce the number that end up in landfill.
Is this the solution to our problems?
On its own, life cycle engineering
isn't enough to solve the sustainability crisis.
However, when applied within the sustainability framework, which
takes into account the planetary boundaries,
we can develop more sustainable products and services
that allow us to meet the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.
So as you complete your studies and start your careers,
keep in mind the role you will play in the IPAT equation.
And always remember this--
there is no Planet B. This video series
was supported by UNSW Sydney's Inspired Learning Initiative
and produced by Dr James Vassie with the engineering
advice of Professor Sami Kara and Dr Shiva Abdoli.