Environmental Challenge for Engineers

Abstract

The challenge facing the engineering profession is to design in a manner that protects the environment and promotes sustainable development: This is becoming a vital facet of our everyday behavior. To meet this challenge, the profession has to emphasize the necessity for all engineers to understand the challenge and to respect the parameters that govern it. One approach is the promotion of the exchange of relevant information on both the physical and social system; one way to achieve this is through the development of worldwide partnerships and coalitions, such as the World Engineering Partnerships for Sustainable Development (WEPSD). It is also important that an imperative be recognized: namely that the engineers' planning, design, and construction of facilities meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. To satisfy this imperative, it is essential for the engineer to develop a set of ethical principles that will govern his ability to reject demands by certain elements of the public to design unsustainably, with short-term profit and expediency as the immediate goals.