Sustainability in Engineering Education and Research at U.S. Universities

Transcription

1 Environ. Sci. Technol. 2009, 43, Downloaded by UNIV OF TEXAS AUSTIN on August 4, 2009 Sustainability in Engineering Education and Research at U.S. Universities CYNTHIA F. MURPHY* DAVID ALLEN University of Texas, Austin BRADEN ALLENBY Arizona State University, Tempe JOHN CRITTENDEN Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta CLIFF I. DAVIDSON CHRIS HENDRICKSON H. SCOTT MATTHEWS Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Questionnaire results indicate that sustainable, or green, engineering is securing its foothold in U.S. academic programs. In December 2003, Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) published a special issue on the Principles of Green Engineeringsengineering for sustainability. Two dozen papers described approaches to evaluating the environmental footprints of products and processes, green design methods and case studies, and education reform. The papers were organized using a framework of 12 principles of Green Engineering (1), which paralleled the 12 principles of green chemistry identified by Anastas and Warner (2) and appear in Table 1. The papers reflected growth in engineering research and education addressing sustainability, driven by societal attention to environmental issues, and increased funding for research in sustainable engineering. After 5 years, it is reasonable to ask how well these principles of Green Engineering, or engineering for sustainability, have been incorporated into engineering education and research. To address this question, the Center for Sustainable Engineering (CSE), a collaborative initiative of the University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie Mellon University, and Arizona State University, benchmarked the extent to which sustainability concepts are being incorporated into the research and educational missions of colleges of engineering in the U.S. Although it is recognized that there are a number of sustainability efforts in the natural sciences and business schools, as well as stand-alone efforts in sustainability, this evaluation was limited to engineering programs for the scope of the analysis to be manageable and to facilitate inter-comparisons of programs. The primary focus of the benchmarking effort was the distribution and analysis of two questionnaires regarding sustainable engineering education. The first questionnaire focused on development of sustainable engineering at the program level. It was sent to the heads of all academic units within the U.S. that included at least one Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) program. More than 1300 letters were sent out to department and program heads, and nearly 300 responses were received (a 21% response rate). A more detailed questionnaire was sent to 327 additional engineering faculty identified as sustainable engineering champions. The identification of these individuals was based on recommendations from department and program heads, 10-year publication records from technical journals that focus on issues of sustainability (such as the Journal of Industrial Ecology and Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy), and attendance at four separate workshops held by the Center for Sustainable Engineering in which >120 faculty members participated. A total of 137 valid responses from this smaller group were received, for a response rate of 43%. These results provide representation by at least one individual from 97 (27%) of all 365 U.S. institutions with engineering programs. Copies of both questionnaires are included in the Supporting Information (SI) for this paper. SHUTTERSTOCK/RHONDA SAUNDERS ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / VOL. 43, NO. 15, /es900170m 2009 American Chemical Society Published on Web 07/06/2009

2 TABLE 1. System Scales and Topics, and Associated Green Engineering Principles (green engineering principle) system size description topics gate-to-gate cradle-to-grave decisions made within a single facility or corporation by engineering and/or business units (i.e., site- or industrysector-specific activities) decisions made by different entities over the life of a product or sector activity; activities are typically analyzed as sequential events (i.e., life cycle analysis) process design, including material and/or energy reduction 3,4 material or chemical selection 9 product design for a single phase of a product s life (e.g., design for recycling) 9,11 pollution prevention 2 media-based (i.e., air, water, solid waste) regulations 1 resource availability and economics 12 consumer behavior 5,8 product utility 5,7,8 reuse and recycling options 4,7,9,11 product based legislation (e.g., WEEE) and standards (e.g., ISO 14000) life cycle inventory development 10 Downloaded by UNIV OF TEXAS AUSTIN on August 4, 2009 inter-industry (industrial symbiosis) extra-industry decisions made by two or more entities (corporations or other stakeholders), often involving multiple sectors; the analysis typically captures spatial as well as temporal effects and scales, although temporal scales may be compressed such that activities are presumed to occur in parallel (i.e., industrial ecology) decisions made by multiple stakeholders, including industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policy makers, consumers, etc. material flow analysis 4,10 by-product synergy 6,10 eco-industrial development 10 multiple/nested LCA analysis 6,10 input-output analysis (either physical or economic) 10 policy development (current and historical) consumption patterns and preferences 5,8 eco-industrial development 10 multiple/nested LCA analysis 6,10 input-output analysis (either physical or economic) 10 1 Principle 1: Designers need to strive to ensure that all material and energy inputs and outputs are as inherently nonhazardous as possible. 2 Principle 2: It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it is formed. 3 Principle 3: Separation and purification operations should be designed to minimize energy consumption and materials use. 4 Principle 4: Products, processes, and systems should be designed to maximize mass, energy, space, and time efficiency. 5 Principle 5: Products, processes, and systems should be output pulled rather than input pushed through the use of energy and materials. 6 Principle 6: Embedded entropy and complexity must be viewed as an investment when making design choices on recycle, reuse, or beneficial disposition. 7 Principle 7: Targeted durability, not immortality, should be a design goal. 8 Principle 8: Design for unnecessary capacity or capability (e.g., one size fits all ) solutions should be considered a design flaw. 9 Principle 9: Material diversity in multicomponent products should be minimized to promote disassembly and value retention. 10 Principle 10: Design of products, processes, and systems must include integration and interconnectivity with available energy and materials flows. 11 Principle 11: Products, processes, and systems should be designed for performance in a commercial afterlife. 12 Principle 12: Material and energy inputs should be renewable rather than depleting. While the overall representation of engineering programs is <30% in the results reported here, the representation of highly rated engineering programs is more extensive. Threefourths (73%) of engineering schools with Ph.D. programs and that ranked in the top 100 had at least one department that participated in the questionnaire (ranking numbers are in ref 3). Since more than 80% of the respondents reported some level of sustainable engineering course activity and 70% reported some sustainable engineering research activity, it is clear that teaching and research in sustainable engineering are part of the activities of most of the top 100 engineering programs in the U.S. As described in the full report, available at the CSE website (4, 5), the activity is most extensive at the largest institutions. The findings from the benchmarking effort reported in this paper are presented in two major categories: (1) courses, course modules, and curricula, and (2) research. Since the findings are not a census of activities, the findings should be considered directional rather than definitive. In addition, in conducting the benchmarking, a comprehensive definition of either sustainability or sustainable engineering, was, intentionally, not provided. The goal of the benchmarking was to have engineering programs self-identify the content that constitutes sustainable engineering. This means that there is some heterogeneity in the nature of the responses. While this reflects the state of the art in sustainable engineering educational practices, it increases the subjectivity of the findings. Curricula, Courses, and Course Modules More than 80% of the respondents, which as noted above include 73% of schools with Ph.D. programs that ranked in the top 100, reported some level of course activity. While most of the top 100 programs offer courses, a much smaller number of programs offer degrees. A total of one-quarter VOL. 43, NO. 15, 2009 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

3 FIGURE 1. Courses described by sustainable engineering (SE) champions were grouped into four categories: Sustainable Engineering (dedicated sustainable engineering courses), Traditional Engineering courses with sustainable engineering content, Cross-disciplinary courses offered jointly with a non-engineering department, and Sustainable Engineering Technology courses which addressed technologies viewed as enabling for sustainability. (23%) of respondents (65 departments and 53 institutions) offer Bachelor s or Master s degree programs related to sustainability. Minors and certificate programs in sustainability were not specifically investigated for reasons including the fact that they are often not housed within engineering departments. Curricula. To summarize the results of the benchmarking effort in the area of curricula and degree programs, examples of specific programs and activities with features that are unusual are described. The goal of identifying these programs and practices of note is not to endorse specific approaches, but rather to identify potential pathways that the sustainable engineering education community may follow as it establishes common practices. At the graduate level, degree programs include inter- and intra-departmental programs and multi-institutional programs. The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Yale University (New Haven, CT) provide examples of interdepartmental curricula with joint Master s degree programs: Michigan s College of Engineering has partnered with its School of Natural Resources and Environment; Yale s College of Engineering has partnered with its School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Both of these programs are new, having launched in The Michigan program offers three tracks: sustainable energy systems, sustainable design and manufacturing, and sustainable water resources, with required courses from both engineering and natural resources and a final Master s report. The Yale program also involves core courses from both the School of Engineering (water resources, industrial ecology, and sustainable design) and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (environmental science, social ecology, economics, and policy and law). A longer-standing program is offered through the Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA). For more than 30 years, this program has offered Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) programs to students interested in both technical and policy dimensions of topics such as energy and environment. The undergraduate program is available only as a double major with any of the traditional engineering departments or with computer science. The core of the program consists of selected courses in decision analysis, economics, statistics, and technical topics, plus two project courses where students work in teams on a current unstructured problem for an outside client. Graduate student requirements include courses in policy analysis, economics, and probability and estimation methods for engineering systems. Graduate students can pursue a single major in EPP or a double major. This program can be contrasted with the programs at Yale and Michigan in that it combines engineering, environment, and policy into programs that reside within the College of Engineering; most faculty in the EPP have dual appointments there and with one of the traditional engineering departments or computer science. Another approach to graduate engineering education in sustainability has been developed by the University of Pittsburgh. The Sustainable Engineering Fellowship program, funded through the National Science Foundation s (NSF s) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program, focuses on construction and water use, and includes topics such as new materials, reducing energy use, and life cycle design and planning. The program partners with the University s Center for Latin American Studies and the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to host an 8-month international experience in green construction and sustainable water use for the graduate students participating in the program. At the undergraduate level, an unusually comprehensive approach to undergraduate education in sustainable engineering has been developed by Virginia Tech (Blacksburg). There students from any undergraduate engineering program can choose a concentration related to sustainable (green) engineering. Students take a total of 18 semester credit hours of courses with sustainable engineering content: 6 h within their major, 6 h of interdisciplinary electives, and 6 h that are core to the option. Depending on the specific engineering department, between 120 and 136 hours are needed for graduation; thus these courses constitute 13-15% of total required credits. The two core courses provide a general ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / VOL. 43, NO. 15, 2009

4 Downloaded by UNIV OF TEXAS AUSTIN on August 4, 2009 FIGURE 2. Coverage of topics at (a) gate-to-gate and (b) cradle-to-grave scales in sustainable engineering courses. background in environmental science and an introduction to life cycle assessment (LCA) approaches to engineering problem solving. The consistent approach across all engineering departments and the common core courses, taken by engineers from all departments, make this program unusual. A different approach, with a different undergraduate audience can be found at the University of Texas (Austin). Engineering faculty there have developed and taught university courses with no pre-requisites that are offered as part of a reform of the undergraduate core curriculum. The reform requires that all university students take Signature Courses that teach multi-disciplinary approaches to addressing complex and pervasive societal problems. A course titled Sustaining a Planet describes material and energy cycles in the natural world (e.g., the carbon cycle), how natural systems interact with and are modified by engineered systems (e.g., how carbon emissions from engineered systems perturb global carbon cycles), and how students lives fit into these systems. Signature courses have also been developed on more focused topics in sustainable engineering (e.g., energy systems). These courses provide insight into how sustainable engineering topics can be delivered to broad audiences at the undergraduate level. These exemplars of educational approaches at the graduate and undergraduate levels illustrate the diversity of activities captured in the benchmarking. While program structures are highly diverse, courses and course content show more of a consensus approach. Courses and Course Modules. The benchmarking effort indicates that courses and course modules are extensively used to incorporate sustainability content and concepts into engineering degree programs by four dominant means. The first and most common approach is to develop dedicated sustainable engineering courses; these tend to focus on the use of tools designed to address complex systems at relatively large scales (such as LCA). Another slightly less common approach is to integrate sustainable engineering concepts into traditional courses. Two additional approaches, each used in <15% of the courses reported in the benchmarking, focus on the technologies predicted to be important in developing sustainable engineering solutions (such as carbon capture or solar power) or offer courses in conjunction with VOL. 43, NO. 15, 2009 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

5 a non-engineering department as a cross-listed or interdisciplinary course offering. Figure 1 depicts the number of courses reported in the benchmarking in each of the four categories, along with the fraction of the course content that is dedicated to sustainable engineering. Nearly all (94%) of the courses categorized as dominated by sustainable engineering material were described as containing >50% sustainable (SE) content; the respondents were not given a definition of sustainable engineering when asked to assess the content of their courses, but were given examples of material that should be considered as addressing sustainable engineering (e.g., entries in Table 1). More than two-thirds of courses categorized as traditional engineering with sustainable engineering content are described as having a >10% sustainable engineering focus; more than one-third have >25%. Benchmarking information on the content of the material in the courses was assembled and organized in a variety of ways. One way of organizing the information is to recognize different scales of design; four categories, representing different scales, were used. The smallest scale, referred to as gate-to-gate, addresses the design of processes and manufacturing of products (e.g., the design of an auto part). The next larger scale, referred to as cradle-to-grave, examines the entire life cycle of a product or process (e.g., the life cycle of a vehicle). At an even larger scale, the relationship between engineering designs and the infrastructures that support them (inter-industry, e.g., the roads and fuels that support vehicles) can be examined. A final scale, referred to as extra-industry, addresses the relationship between designs and social and cultural norms (e.g., the relationship between vehicle use and urban planning). Table 1 identifies these scales and gives examples of the types of topics covered at each scale. The topics identified in Table 1 are matched with the green engineering principles identified by Anastas and Zimmerman (1). All of the principles are represented along with some additional topics which are primarily at the inter-industry and extra-industry scales. Most of the focus of sustainable engineering courses reported in this benchmarking tends to be at the gate-togate or cradle-to-grave scales. More than three-quarters of courses cover at least some of the topics listed in Table 1 at these two scales. In contrast, half of the courses contain no content at the inter-industry or extra-industry scales, and consequently some sustainable engineering and green engineering principles (e.g., principles 6 and 10) are frequently not covered in engineering curricula. As shown in Figure 2, there is some variability among engineering disciplines in the coverage of topics. For example, general engineering programs are less likely to cover regulations targeted at specific environmental media, while chemical and materials engineering programs are more likely than other engineering disciplines to cover pollution prevention. Despite these differences, there is an overall trend among engineering programs to cover gate-to-gate and cradle-to-grave scales, and the principles of green engineering in their courses. The information on course content collected in the benchmarking effort can also be organized topically. Table 2 lists course themes that were identified by examining readings and texts associated with the courses. A full listing of the materials is available in the final report for the project (5). Energy and life cycle approaches emerge as particularly dominant themes, although more general system approaches and water resources are also common topical areas. More detail concerning the topics covered in sustainable engineering courses is provided by a group of course modules available through the CSE. The CSE has organized workshops to bring together faculty members who are developing courses or sections of courses on sustainable engineering. Participants who attended one of the CSE workshops were ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / VOL. 43, NO. 15, 2009 TABLE 2. Themes Observed in Books and Readings theme energy & power generation LCA (life cycle assessment) business & economics no. of times dominant theme of reading or book no. of times addressed to a notable degree if addressed, % of time it was dominant theme 84 a 203 a 41% a 67 a 148 a 45% a 39 a 182 a 21% industrial ecology 38 a 65 58% a systems, metrics, & information management 38 a 139 a 27% water 36 a 71 51% a industrial processes 33 a 123 a 27% humanities (philosophy, ethics, history) end of life and waste management 31 a 109 a 28% a 26 a 98 a 27% design 22 a 127 a 17% pollution prevention, fate & transport % a transportation % a policy a 11% biogeochemical systems (incl. ecology) % materials % building & construction urbanism and urban systems % a % a climate change % agriculture and land use % natural resources a 10% material flow analysis % a human health % a Indicates top 10 in number of times the theme was addressed, number of times it was used as one of multiple themes, or the number of times it was the dominant theme. required to submit a module to an electronic library linked to the CSE web site (4). Current and planned modules address LCA, ecological footprints, introductory sustainable engineering, green construction, water and air quality, renewable energy, metalworking fluids, climate change, public understanding of sustainable engineering, nanomanufacturing, infrastructure development, waste minimization, green materials, and sustainable design. These modules provide complementary, and in some cases, more detailed informa-

6 TABLE 3. Sponsored Research Themes, Ranked by Number of Projects tion about content of courses than could be represented in benchmarking questionnaires. Research theme energy & power generation no. of projects with theme dominant no. of projects where theme is significant rank of theme in course readings 61 a 77 a 1 industrial processes 25 a 42 a 7 materials 22 a 32 a 15 a end of life and waste management 20 a 26 a 9 building & construction 16 a 20 a 16 a water 14 a 22 a 6 transportation 13 a 20 a 12 humanities (including education) 10 a 15 8 climate change a human health a pollution prevention, fate & transport systems, metrics, & information management biogeochemical systems (including ecology) a industrial ecology agriculture and land use business & economics a design LCA (life cycle assessment) material flow analysis urbanism and urban systems a a a Indicates top 8 dominant themes in projects and the 8 themes that were most commonly identified as a significant component of projects. Research funding in sustainable engineering is substantial. The benchmarking effort identified roughly a quarter of a billion dollars in funding. The dominant sponsor of this research is the NSF and consequently median project sizes ( $300,000) and durations (36 months) follow NSF norms. The funding is concentrated in top tier institutions; more than half of the research funding is found at top 40 Ph.D. granting institutions. Student participation in these research programs is extensive: more than 500 graduate and roughly 400 undergraduate students are actively engaged. As shown in Table 3, topical areas for research are heavily concentrated in energy and power systems. However, publication and other dissemination of results are not primarily directed toward energy conferences and journals; readers may not be surprised to learn that the two dominant journals that sustainable engineering researchers monitor and publish in are ES&T and the Journal of Industrial Ecology. The approaches that different institutions take in conducting sustainable engineering research can be categorized in the same manner as teaching in this area. Categories identified in the full benchmarking report include (1) integration of sustainable engineering concepts to evaluate or improve an existing infrastructure or industry sector, (2) development of technologies that will facilitate sustainable behavior and systems, (3) interdisciplinary efforts to address complex systems, and (4) sustainable engineering tool development and optimization. Conclusion The progress of sustainable engineering is at a critical juncture. As documented in the benchmarking study and summarized in this paper, there is significant grass-roots activity in education and research related to sustainable engineering. While individual programs are well structured and course materials are addressing common themes and topics, there is little overall organization at a national level. The principles of green engineering (1), and recommended bodies of knowledge in sustainable engineering, such as those developed by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (6), provide frameworks for education and research. The path forward will require the development of a set of community standards for sustainable engineering. The benchmarking described here is an inventory of what is currently available and can serve as a resource as standards develop. All of the authors are founding members of the Center for Sustainable Engineering. Cynthia Murphy is a research associate with the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. David Allen is the Gertz Regents Professor in Chemical Engineering and director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. Brad Allenby is Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, a professor of civil, environmental, and sustainable engineering, and founding director of the Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management, at Arizona State University. John Crittenden is director of the Brook Byers Institute of Sustainable Systems at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Cliff Davidson is a professor of civil & environmental engineering and engineering & public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and is director of the Center for Sustainable Engineering. Chris Hendrickson is the Duquesne Light Company Professor of Engineering and codirector of the Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Scott Matthews is an associate professor in civil & environmental engineering and engineering & public policy at Carnegie Mellon and research director of the Green Design Institute. Please address correspondence regarding this article to cfmurphy@mail.utexas.edu. Acknowledgments The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through Grant Agreement X , provided funding for this work. Although the research described in this article has been funded in part by the EPA, it has not been subjected to the Agency s peer and policy review and therefore does not necessarily reflect the views of the agency, and no official endorsement should be inferred. Supporting Information Available Copies of the two questionnaires used to gather the data presented in this analysis. This information is available free of charge via the Internet at VOL. 43, NO. 15, 2009 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

7 Literature Cited (1) Anastas, P. T.; Zimmerman, J. B. Design through the twelve principles of green engineering. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003, 37 (5), 94A 101A. (2) Anastas, P. T.; Warner, J. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice; Oxford University Press: London, (3) U.S. News & World Report. Best Colleges 2009: Premium Online Edition, Undergraduate Engineering Programs, 2008; accessed September, 2008 (available for a fee at rankingsandreviews.com/college/engineering). (4) The Center for Sustainable Engineering (CSE); (5) Allen, D.; Allenby, B.; Bridges, M.; Crittenden, J.; Davidson, C.; Hendrickson, C.; Matthews, S.; Murphy, C.; Pijawka, D. Benchmarking Sustainability Engineering Education; Final Report EPA Grant X , 2008; available at (6) American Academy of Environmental Engineers. Environmental engineering body of knowledge summary report. Environ. Eng. 2008, 44 (3), ES900170M ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / VOL. 43, NO. 15, 2009