Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT The PlayPump – childrenhave fun and help with watersupply.48© David Singletoncient railway lines and stations mean we can commute to workor escape to places where we choose to spend our leisure time,and good design creates residential areas and houses that arecomfortable, safe places to live. Sustainable development alsoensures that this will not be at the expense of future generationsor the environment.While good engineering provides good infrastructure, whichcan make people’s lives better, as engineers we also have aresponsibility to create solutions that are not only effective,but contribute positively to our environment. Sustainabledesign objectives should run through everything that we doas engineers; we should always be thinking about how we canmake people’s lives better tomorrow, as well as today.As stated above, the urbanization challenge is not just aboutproviding infrastructure in developing worlds but also aboutretrofitting existing ones. By adopting an integrated approachto managing our existing cities, we can dramatically increasetheir chances for environmental, social and economic successin the years to come.However, the challenge of retrofitting cities to be more sustainableis complex. Fortunately, small steps can deliver largebenefits, and change does not need to be radical. Unlockingvalue from present inefficiencies is just one opportunity, forexample, information technology can be used for real-timejourney planning, making existing transport networks moreefficient.We need to find city-specific solutions that provide a higherquality of life at lower economic cost and help cities to dealwith risks such as climate change and access to clean waterand food. Despite the size of the challenge, the rising cost ofresources like energy and food and the resultant economicbenefits of sustainable development will drive the reinventionof our cities.Arup is committed to achieving integrated design solutionsthat balance social, economic, physical and temporal parameters,creating unique and authentic new urban environments.The firm’s intrinsic agenda addresses efficient landuse, infrastructureefficiency, urban economics and matters of microclimate,sociology, ecology, hydrology and energy usage. Theseagendas allow us to focus our desire to create sustainable communities,for example in achieving the potential to ‘unlock’new life from ‘brownfield’ sites.The new environments we create should facilitate humaninteractions without being prescriptive, allowing chance andspontaneity to occur in interesting and fulfilling places in whichto live, work and play. Thoughtfully planned and designedinfrastructure can achieve all of this. But we must manage therisks to the environments that surround us, including thosethat we create by our designs and their implementation. Asengineers, we can manage these risks by applying ‘precautionaryprinciples’, planning buildings and infrastructure to copewith the worst likely outcome rather than hoping for the best.Taking into account of major forces such as climate change,water shortages and energy issues means constantly thinkingabout the overall sustainability of our designs. Our aim is to seta standard of sustainable design that benefits the environmentin both the short and the long term. We have a significantimpact on the world around us and there is an opportunity,and indeed a moral obligation, for us to set a standard ofdesign that benefits the environment and the people who livewithin. We must constantly think about the overall sustainabilityof our designs, how we build them, and how they affectthe surrounding environment.To do this effectively, we should ensure our innovation anddesign solutions meet people’s needs and allow them to livethe way they choose without creating a negative legacy forgenerations to come. This is what we might call ‘EngineeringSocial Responsibility’.One of the challenges for the engineering profession is todevelop sustainable urban infrastructure that recognizes,rather than resists, the inevitability of migration to urbancentres and makes provision for these rapidly growing populations.As engineers we must work effectively in collaborationwith our colleagues and other development-focused professionalsand community leaders to implement sustainable solutionsto challenges such as urban poverty. However, we needto ensure that these solutions are well integrated into widerdecision-making, planning and institutional developmentprocesses to improve living conditions for all.Sustainability and corporate responsibility are having anincreasing influence on how organizations behave, operate anddo business. There are many reasons why sustainability shouldbe at the top of everyone’s business agenda, not least becausethe continued survival of future generations depends on findingsolutions to the combined issues of climate change, finding analternative to carbon-emitting fossil fuels for energy and transportneeds, and ensuring widespread access to clean water.The environment in which businesses operate is starting toreward sustainability in business, and a clearer definition isemerging. Sustainability represents a challenge to business,but embracing it is fundamental to managing a company’s riskprofile, and is essentially good business practice. The engineeringindustry is no exception. In fact, the engineering industryhas a greater responsibility towards meeting government legislation,self- or industry- imposed governance, the demandsof customers to demonstrate we are acting responsibly, and toeducate clients of the need to change behaviour and be moreenvironmentally aware.