Sustainable Engineering Practice

Book excerpt: Sustainable Engineering Practice: An Introduction provides a broad, fundamental understanding of sustainability principles and their application to engineering work. It is intended to fill a need for a primer on sustainability that can be introduced early in an engineer's career: it brings together all the basic dimensions of the history, concepts, and applications of sustainable engineering; and through a variety of examples and references, inspires and encourages engineers to pursue and integrate sustainable engineering into their work on a life-long basis. The report contains: background summary of the role and accomplishments of engineers in sustainable development. The complete report, Engineers and Sustainable Development, is contained on the accompanying CD ROM; summary of the major commitments made and implementation activities agreed upon at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 2002, and the initial steps taken by the U.S. engineering community and its global partners; wide spectrum of examples, which describe how sustainability principles can and are being integrated and applied in engineering education, researc will benefit from this primer on sustainable development and its concepts and applications.