Beyond Efficiency: Engineering for Sustainability Requires Solving for Pattern

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is a consensus that engineering design practice and education needs to change, to address the sustainability challenges facing the planet. This shift towards sustainability engineering requires illustrating successful design practices that embed sustainability values, particularly designs that move away from the current focus on input–output efficiency, towards eco-social and socio-technical approaches to design. We present three cases where the designs illustrate such a widening of the design space, to include parameters beyond input–output efficiency and optimization for profit, and leading to innovative socio-technical solutions. These cases suggest that the socio-technical connection is highly plastic, allowing for a range of ways in which the ecological, social, and technical could come together to form innovative and sustainable solutions. They illustrate a novel design principle – ‘Solving for Pattern’ – where the designs seek to address many problems simultaneously in an interconnected way. These cases indicate that designing for sustainability requires a broadening of the roles and identities of engineering designers, to include themes wider than engineering sciences and mathematics. Including these and similar case studies in engineering curricula could support the shift towards such a broader engineering design identity, where sustainability is a key component of design practice.