Заняття № 20. Розвиток сучасної техніки в рамках концепції сталого розвитку. Engineering for Sustainable Development

Мета заняття: Сформувати у студентів загальні та професійно орієнтовані комунікативні мовленнєві компетенції (лінгвістичну, соціолінгвістичну і прагматичну) для забезпечення ефективного спілкування. Формування навичок з обговорення актуальних проблем за фахом.

1. Answer the following questions:

1.1. What role do engineers play in sustainable development?

1.2. What are the principles of sustainable engineering?

1.3. How are the principles of sustainable engineering applied in practice?

2. Read the text and discuss it in the group.

It is vital that engineers - from students to those already practising - have a deep understanding of the environmental threats facing the world. Is there a way to change modern lifestyles? Could new improved technologies play a key role? If great leaps in the environmental efficiency of technologies are needed, can they be produced? Engineers are in a privileged and influential position to innovate, design and build a sustainable future. But are they engaged or uninterested?

Sustainable development, especially since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment & Development at Rio de Janeiro, has become an increasingly important theme in local, national and world politics, and increasingly a central theme for the engineering professions around the world. The sustainable development concept requires of all of us – as engineers and citizens – to consider much more widely than before the impact of our own lives and of the infrastructure and products we produce, both geographically and temporally.

With infrastructure and engineering products and processes becoming increasingly complex, engineers need to integrate consideration of whole-life environmental and social impacts – positive as well as negative. Wise use of natural resources, minimum negative impact and maximum positive impact on people and the environment are the targets. Time is not on our side to make the necessary changes in our way of life if we are to live within the limited capacity of Planet Earth.

The 12 Principles of Engineering for Sustainable Development are:

1. Identify the potential positive and negative impacts of your actions, not only locally and soon but also outside our local environment, and into the future.

2. Innovate and be creative.

3. Seek a balanced solution.

4. Professional engineers to participate actively in the decision-making as citizens as well as in their professional roles.

5. Make sure you know the needs and wants.

6. Plan and manage effectively.

7. Recognise that sustainable development depends on investing for jam tomorrow and for bread and butter today.

8. If polluters must pollute… then they must pay as well.

9. Adopt a continuous,‘from the beginning to the end’ approach.

10. Do things right, having decided on the right thing to do.

11. Avoid sacrificing the sustainability desires incorporated in a design when seeking cost reductions.

12. Practice what you preach. Change yourself before you seek to change others.

Engineers will still design and manage complex systems. However, sustainable development defines the contexts within which these skills must be deplayed. It is a new integrative principle, not a new set of tools, so that the concept cannot simply be regarded as an ‘add-on’ to existing engineering skills and educational programmes. The understanding of Guiding Principles of sustainable development will help promote more sustainable design machines and systems and provide their application in practice.

3. Say whether the following statements are true or false:

3.1. Engineers can’t influence the development of technologies. True / False

3.2. Wise use of natural resources, minimum negative impact on the environment are the targets of sustainable engineering. True / False

3.3. Engineers must identify the potential positive and negative impacts of their actions. True / False

3.4. Engineers must think mostly about future. True / False

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