Engineers are often not equipped and empowered to think holistically about the impact of their designs over the full life cycle. In most cases, engineers only have control over one small part of the overall design process and consideration across the supply chain is difficult.
This can be a concern in emerging technology areas, where the negative side effects of otherwise exciting, sustainable designs are not yet fully realised. For example, whilst electrification has many environmental benefits, the mining and extraction of resources, such as lithium, mica and cobalt, cause severe impacts to the planet and local populations. Often, first world countries benefit and feel good from adopting these “sustainable” technologies, but developing countries take on the “dark side”, and there is little transparency of this impact to the end users.
We propose a simple-to-use tool which poses challenging questions to engineers to ensure they are considering the sustainability and ethical impacts of design decisions, to identify opportunities to engage and improve across the supply chain.
The tool would be designed for global application across multiple businesses and sectors. It would require engineers to document that they have considered the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) impacts at all stages of the product's life cycle and supply chain, including raw material sourcing, manufacturing, delivery to the end user, use-phase and end-of-life.
At each stage of the product design process, the tool would need to be revisited and recalibrated. The tool would deliver an ESG "score", which could roll up to a company's reporting to stakeholders to achieve transparency and ensure corporations can demonstrate that they have considered the entire value chain. The ESG “score” could also be tied to end product specifications for marketing and consumers to consider, similar to Fairtrade products. While the tool may not improve the impacts of the project being evaluated, it will provide reflection and opportunity to improve the industry as the technology is further developed.
Team Members:
Bethany Hall
Erika Rosenstein
Gavin Fraser
Andre Reis
Hi team, was great to meet you earlier this week, and interesting to see how your submission is progressing, I think your idea is really strong! If you need more feedback before Monday I'm available here, or via email. Best of luck with the finishing touches.
Chris
Hi Bethany, Erika, Gavin and Andre! Thanks for submitting your concept note, and nice to virtually meet you all.
I've been assigned as your mentor on this project and am already really impressed by your idea. I'm by no means an expert, but hoping my comments and questions can help draw out the expertise you each already have within. I've summarised my initial thoughts below. (To briefly give context to my observations, my background is in renewable energy and building services.)
You've highlighted a great point on the limitation of an engineer's control / knowledge, I certainly find this is often the case. Regarding the marking criteria, this perfectly fits with being 'Purposeful'. Make sure you clearly demonstrate how this principle has influenced your concept will guarantee you high marks.
Nice example of electrification, as it can apply to both developing and developed countries, and shows inclusivity. How wide are you casting the net for this tool? Could it also apply in a developing context, to both high-tech and low-tech engineering solutions? I.e. a project to install a solar mini-grid, and a large railway infrastructure project? Would the tool needs to be altered for each of these situations?
Your 4th paragraph perfectly sums up what factors this tool could consider, and how holistic is it compared to most of the current approaches, definitely something to expand on. Where might an engineer find answers to some these questions? Where should this responsibility sit for obtaining this information? I imagine manufactures and the supply chain will need to be involved.
Specifically on materials, check out the 'Living Building Challenge' by LFI. They have a means of measuring material sustainability: https://living-future.org/lbc/materials-petal/, could existing standards like this be incorporated?
As above, on embodied carbon, I've once used a tool called 'One Click LCA': https://www.oneclicklca.com/ Something like this could be integrated into your tool.
The most tricky marking criteria to meet may be 'Regenerative'. Similar to carbon neutral vs. carbon negative, could you your scoring system distinguish between reducing and regenerating? I.e. a score of zero would be neutral impact, to put things in context.
In terms of communication, we can continue dialogue on this platform, but if you would like anything else, such as a video call, please let me know.
Please feel free to respond to anything I've said, or throw out more thoughts, and hopefully our dialogue can make this idea even stronger.