Resilience and Sustainable Development | AIChE

Resilience and Sustainable Development

Traditional modeling approaches are ill suited to a world of increasing connectivity, complexity, and turbulent change. Integrated assessment of dynamic, complex systems is challenging because hidden interactions can produce surprising side effects. A key factor is resilience, the capacity of a system to survive, adapt and grow in a continuously changing environment. Indeed, resilience is a prerequisite for sustainability.

Living systems such as communities or ecosystems perpetually evolve through cycles of growth, crisis, and renewal. They respond resiliently to emerging threats or opportunities using a variety of flexible strategies. The concept of resilience is equally applicable to industrial enterprises, and encompasses a range of issues from short-term risk management and supply chain continuity to long-term economic sustainability.

The Center for Resilience was established in 2005 with the mission of strengthening the resilience of global industrial systems and the environments in which they operate. Through sponsored research, the Center has developed a number of advanced modeling tools for assessment of sustainability and resilience in enterprise systems.

This webinar discusses the challenges of sustainable development, and gives examples of current research on life cycle assessment, industrial ecology, and supply chain resilience.

The Sustainable Engineering Forum (SEF) seeks collaborative work in programming and education objectives with other professional societies, both national and foreign. SEF Members may access this content for free.


Webinar content is available with the kind permission of the author(s) solely for the purpose of furthering AIChE’s mission to educate, inform and improve the practice of professional chemical engineering. All other uses are forbidden without the express consent of the author(s). For permission to re-use, please contact chemepermissions@aiche.org.

Once the content has been viewed and you have attested to it, you will be able to download and print a certificate for PDH credits. If you have already viewed this content, please click here to login.
  • AIChE Member Credits - 1
  • AIChE Pro Members - $76.00
  • AIChE Graduate Student Members - Free
  • AIChE Undergraduate Student Members - Free
  • AIChE Explorer Members - $109.00
  • Non-Members - $109.00
Do you already own this? Log In for instructions on accessing this content.
  • Source:
    SEF - Sustainable Engineering Forum
  • Language:
    English
  • Skill Level:
    Intermediate
  • Duration:
  • PDHs:
    1.00