(658c) The Need for Convergence

It is well-understood that the sustainability challenge cannot be solved by any single conventional discipline. This has given rise to new fields such as sustainable engineering, ecological economics, and industrial ecology, and to frameworks such as life cycle assessment and circular economy. Virtually every corporation is working toward sustainability, and tens of thousands of papers have been published. Despite these efforts, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, biodiversity loss continues unabated, and societies continue to become more unequal. We will argue that a root cause behind the unsustainability of human activities is the divergence between disciplines that took place over the last three centuries. This gave rise to disciplines such as economics, ecology, and engineering. The resulting specialization has enabled advances that support human well-being, but it has also resulted in unsustainable development as an unintended side effect. We will provide several examples in support of this argument. With this insight, we will further argue that for meeting the challenge of sustainable development, engineering needs to strive toward convergence with ecology and economics. This requires each discipline to transcend beyond its conventional domain to result in new concepts and principles that will form the foundation of sustainable development. We will identify some of the challenges in such an effort, as well as the unique opportunities for innovation.