Mission Statement

Statement on Sustainable Engineering Forum of AIChE Ideas and Scope
November 2002

"Sustainability" has emerged as a driving force in transforming business practices and public policy. AIChE is striving to provide its members with a voice in shaping these transformations by providing the intellectual forum and stimulus for defining the roles chemical engineers can play in support of achieving sustainable development.

The idea of sustainability and sustainable development emerged from the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), the so-called Bruntland commission, which defined sustainable development in Our Common Future (1987) as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Earlier, the economist, Repetto (1985) wrote in this context: Current decisions should not impair the prospects for maintaining or improving future living standards.  Another offering of a definition recently arrived at by a group of experts from various disciplines at EPA can be made:  Sustainability occurs when we maintain or improve the material and social conditions for human health and the environment over time without exceeding the ecological capabilities that support them.

Clearly incorporating the concepts of intergenerational equity and ecological capabilities would be a challenge for scientists and engineers in designing processes and products. SEF will do its part to add some scientific rigor to analyzing sustainability and to use appropriate metrics to determine comparative merits of alternatives.

Specifically the following focus areas (not an exclusive list) seem to be appropriate for the Forum to be concerned with:

• Metrics for sustainability
• Developing approaches for designing products and processes that can be optimized to desired metrics criteria and that incorporate environmental and societal benefit factors
• Assessing impacts of resource use (energy, material, and cost) on environmental and social benefits (or otherwise) of products, processes, and services
• Designing new processes or products that are comparatively benign (such as via green chemistry and engineering approaches)
• Technology developments in response to socioeconomic measures such as emission trading
• Educational elements relative to all previous points

One important goal of the Forum would be to seek collaborative work in programming and education objectives with other professional societies, both national and foreign.  We will attempt to reach out to them during and after the formative period of the Forum.  Likely professions with whom we will have a common cause are chemistry, biological sciences and biotechnology, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, for instance.