Sustainable development is a decision making framework. Understanding it helps us ask the necessary questions before we make a choice. Every choice, from what to cook for dinner to where to live, has sustainability implications.
Asking sustainability impact questions is important when creating new digital tools and gadgets. IT engineers create such tools, systems and gadgets because that is what they know how to do. Unfortunately most engineering students know little to nothing about the sustainability framework. In fact, most engineering schools do not even teach sustainability. To their analog-minded professors, sustainability is too much policy for engineers.
I experienced this attitude myself. In early 2022, I proposed to Cornell Tech a course. This course would teach their students the sustainability framework and digitalization. The students at this school are IT engineers doing an MBA. The school’s Vice Provost saw value in my proposal and asked me to develop a fuller outlilne/syllabus. The school’s course approval committee reviewed by expanded proposal in the early fall. The committee decided that my course would be “too much policy for our students.” The analog-minded professors of the committee did not approve my proposed course. But the digital-minded students want to learn sustainability in the context of digitalization. I know the students’ interest because I attend events at Cornell Tech campus and get to talk to the students.
If I cannot, yet, teach this course I can write about some of the content. This is the first of a series of three articles identifying the questions future engineers would have learned to ask if they had a chance to take my course. The three parts reflect the three pillared structure of the sustainability framework. Part I looks at the Environment Pillar, Part II the Economic Pillar, and Part III the Social Pillar.
Sustainability Pillars
Sustainable development has a three pillared framework: environmental, economic and social pillars. Each of the these pillars have their set of elements of key concepts, principles, and tools. It is these elements that turn the idea of sustainable development into a sustainability decision making framework.
Part I: ENVIRONMENT PILLAR
KEY CONCEPTS
The environmental pillar is built on the concepts of (i) ecosystem (holistic approach), (ii) limits (a finite planet), and (iii) impacts (of choices with environmental results, good or bad). Each concept has related tools. For example limits connect with the planetary boundaries idea and tool, and impacts connect to the ecological footprint tool that measures impact of our choices.
Ecosystem is what surrounds us, and through its mostly unseen services known as ecosystem services enables the planet and the life on it to live. Having an ecosystem approach enables us to see the planet as a unified system and not just focus on its individual parts. Such a holistic perspective also creates empathy between the environment in which we live and ourselves. The result is similar to looking at a person and seeing a person rather than a replaceable cog in the wheel. Empathy with the environment is in a way empathy with ourselves because we are part of that environment not external to it.
Limits are a given on a finite planet. The time scale for an element of nature to reach scarcity or total loss may be billions of years which we don’t understand well because our time concept is based on our lifetimes times 2 or 3. We may mathematically or historically talk about millions of years but cannot personally relate to such lengths of time. The planet’s resources seem endless but the degradations we have caused over the millennia or even the last few centuries are already visible in deforested areas and altered weather patterns.
A way to understand and monitor the ecological limits is through the tool of Planetary Boundaries. This is a framework developed by a group of scientists lead by the Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC). Planetary Boundaries are 9 scientific factors that are critical for ecosystem integrity. The boundary limits are based on science not on politics. For example, the scientific tipping point for atmospheric CO2 is 350 parts per million because until that level the ecosystem can manage the atmospheric carbon level. through the natural carbon cycle This is scientific fact. Meanwhile the political debate may decide that up to 420 ppm and its resulting climatic impact will be “acceptable” as we see in the climate change negotiations in which a warming of 1.5 or 2 degree centigrade has been “normalized.” Regular monitoring of these planetary boundaries help us understand the limits as well as the impacts of our choices on the planet. SRC releases regular updates on the status of the boundaries.
Impacts and limits are the two sides of the same coin – where there are limits there are measurable impacts. There are various tools for checking the impacts. One that is popular is the ecological footprint idea developed by the Global Footprint Network (GFN). It is useful to check our personal as well as community and national footprint to have context for the decisions we are making as individuals, or as a country, all of which you can do on the GFN site.
Another tool for determining environmental impacts is the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). This is a tool that produces a more comprehensive overview of impacts. LCA is widely used by industry especially if they are facing regulatory controls on their production process and the resulting pollution.
Simply put, an LCA looks at every stage of a product’s life and determines the related environmental impacts. Running an LCA can be complex depending on the amount of data that needs to be (or can be) collected, and analyzed. Cradle-to-grave LCAs analyze the full cycle from the product’s beginning such as extraction of the materials to its ending when the product is used and ready for disposal. The focus of early LCAs was cradle-to-factory door and did not include impacts of disposal.
In the context of a course on sustainability and digitalization, the above would be covered in much more detail, the tools explained further, and every element linked to specific digital tools or systems ranging from smart phones to web services to generative AI. Through the detailed coverage, the students would be able to see the emerging questions they can or should ask about the digital tool/gadget they are creating, such as:
- does the gadget have an impact on the ecosystem or any of its services (impacts on environmental media of water, soil, air; running of LCAs)?
- what is the gadget’s ecological footprint, (taking into account its energy use)?
- how will it affect the planetary boundaries directly or indirectly?
The questions are specific to environmental impacts under this pillar. Once impacts are identified, the engineer would be compelled to look for alternative routes to his/her gadget so as to avoid its potential negative impacts. If excessive energy use is an impact, the alternative(s) would involve reducing its energy use or prioritize use of renewable energy. If other impacts were identified on air, or water, or an excessively high ecological footprint is predicted, seeking alternatives would be the next step.
PRINCIPLES
The Environment pillar has two critically important principles: (i) the polluter pays principle and (ii) the precautionary principle. A third principle, Inter-generational Equity Principle, also applies but it applies equally to all three pillars and will be covered separately.
Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) underlines most existing environmental laws around the world. It is based on a simple idea: if you pollute you pay (for the cost of managing your impact). The payment can be for environmental clean up, for health costs on individuals and affected communities, and/or for changing the production process so it does not continue creating the harmful pollutant. Origin of the principle can be traced back to the 1972 decision of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). More information on this principle can be found in this OECD paper.
PPP is largely for preventing and managing industrial pollution although other applications of this principle has emerged including more recently discussions on this principle’s application in the area of climate change (that is, historical climate change responsibility of industrialized countries).
For the digital engineer, application of this principle will need evaluation of the potential pollution their digital tool might cause and incorporating this cost into the overall cost of the tool. Questions that they would ask under the concepts of ecosystem and tools such as ecological footprint and LCA are directly relevant here.
Precautionary Principle is my favorite sustainability principle because it is preventive and proactive, not remedial and reactive. As we learn more about the sustainability impacts of our decisions, we are also learning how much destruction and cost we would have prevented if we had a more precautionary approach to our technological choices.
This principle requires that the mere plausible treat or risk of a negative impact must stop the activity that might lead to that negative impact before a full cause-effect relationship is established. Under this principle you cannot wait-and-see environmental destruction or human health consequences – potential risk should stop the activity immediately because there is plausible risk for harm. A simple maxim to explain this principle is better safe than sorry. Here is a short paper by IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development) explaining this complex principle.
In the digitalization process there is talk of being precautionary but not enough action is taken in that direction. Countless people from scientists to politicians to ordinary citizens have raised the potential sustainability implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) but AI developers argue against even basic standards on AI. Their main argument is that regulations and standards would stifle innovation. But lack of regulation and standards may stifle other things we value such as democracy, community, equity and fairness. The industry’s attitude is still one of wait-and-see and take action after harm is done.
The engineer who is digitalizing everything needs to take a serious look at the long term potential for harm from the digital systems, tools and gadgets. Furthermore s/he needs to be honest in this process and not sweep potential harms under the proverbial carpet.
What questions should or could the digital engineer ask here? The questions under this principle get deeper and heavier with implications of what kind of society do we want to live in.
If the engineer is developing a gadget for saving time, wouldn’t it make sense to ask what will people do with the time saved? If the saved time is used to support one’s community, family or their creative pursuits, the gadget would have intrinsic value because it is generating useful personal and social benefit. If the saved time is spent to work more or to watch mindless tv shows, can we still consider the effort to save time worth making? Working more would just exhaust people leaving less time for their personal wellbeing. Watching mindless tv is proven to reduce intellectual capacity which is both a personal and societal loss. So then is the gadget helping or harming society?
When the claim of the digital product is more productivity the questions become even denser. Productivity increases profit. In an increasingly unequal society such as ours, more profit means more concentration of money in fewer and fewer hands. Is that what we want the digital tools do? The sustainability framework inherently demands that we question the need for constant growth and ever rising profits even as we pursue them. Must we always grow at the risk of personal or social well-being? Must there be profit always: can we be happy in a steady-state in which needs are met and any extra is invested back into society?
These are weighty questions that are beyond the remit of a young engineering student. But they need to be asked nevertheless if we want a sustainable future in which what grows is the well-being of the people and the planet.
go to Part II – Economic pillar
go to Part III – Social pillar
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