Engineers believe that many of the problems facing less-developed nations can be solved by using existing knowledge, technology and experience. This, combined with scientific discoveries that can be applied to meeting basic human needs, could make an enormous difference in the next 20 years. The challenges and opportunities for transferring knowledge, building capacity and influencing the decision-making process are stressed in Chapters 31, 34 and 35 of the Rio Summit's Agenda 21.

In the future, engineers can be of even greater help in achieving the goals of sustainable development if they are able to finance and execute programs such as the following:

• Creating a comprehensive program to identify and provide the information that engineers in developing countries need to meet energy requirements, as well as food, health and other basic human needs.

• Expanding global educational programs on sustainable development for students and practicing engineers.

• Encouraging more engineers to become environmental generalists.

• Becoming actively engaged in the full range of decision-making processes in addition to performing projects.

• Improving methods for identifying and considering all of a project's environmental costs and impacts throughout a project's life cycle.

• Creating programs to provide hands-on-help, share knowledge and provide assistance on technically viable, commercially feasible and socially sustainable projects in developing countries.

• Supporting well-crafted policies and creative applications of engineering principles, and committing to partnerships with social and physical scientists and health and medical professionals.

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Share Information

At the WFEO Annual Meeting in September 2001, retiring WFEO Vice President James Poirot expressed his concerns about the problems of reaching engineers in less-developed countries and being able to provide information that would help them meet basic needs in their countries. He described the obstacles that exist, such as different languages and lack of access to modern communication devices, and he urged WFEO to consider ways to accelerate two-way communications of relevant technology.

In response to this challenge, Don Roberts, the new President of ComTech and Vice President of WFEO, drafted a comprehensive proposal (Word, 35KB) that addresses a wide range of problems related to technical communications and sharing of information. This program, if authorized, would consist of five phases and could take 10 years to accomplish. As an example, funding the Virtual Environment and Sustainable Systems Engineering Library program (VESSEL) would help provide Internet access to virtual libraries on sustainable development. Full implementation of the SANet program would also be very helpful in helping to share information.

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Global Education Programs

At present, most universities seem to be developing educational programs about sustainable development independently. These efforts and courses could be made more efficient and thorough and could be shared widely through a global education program using the Internet and wideband telecommunications.

Practicing engineers also need to be able to learn practical methods of using sustainable technologies in their projects. Guidance documents, such as those under development by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the English Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) need to be funded and widely distributed. These documents should include successful case histories and simple suggestions on how engineering projects can be made more compatible with sustainable development.

Engineering educators and practicing engineers should also assist in developing educational materials that would introduce sustainable development concepts to students years before they attend universities. Discover Engineering Online (http://www.discoverengineering.org/eweek/) provides a model for how to attract young students to engineering through student-oriented learning experiences.

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Engineers as Environmental Generalists

A 1990 paper entitled Sustainable Development—A Challenge for the Engineering Profession
(PDF, 762KB), given at the FIDIC Annual Conference in Oslo, Norway, argued that perhaps 25% of engineers should be trained to become superb environmental generalists. The paper suggested that these students could be recruited early and exposed to a broad education that combines the technical skills of engineering with a wide range of environmental disciplines. These studies could be integrated with a background in economics, law, history and political science, and special leadership training would be mandatory, especially in developing communication skills. The author argued that over time this education, combined with a variety of assignments as volunteers, would prepare many of these "renaissance engineers" to assume leadership roles in education, industry and government.

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Engage Engineers in Decision-making

Frequently, engineers will limit their activities to providing technical advice or planning on projects. However, many vital projects face severe delays or cancellation due to opposition from well-intentioned non-governmental organizations or poorly informed politicians. Engineers can help direct the course of important projects-and foster sustainable development--by involving themselves in all stages of a project's decision-making.

Engineers can become involved in local and regional civic activities as volunteers where their knowledge may be vital to sound decisions. If planning studies on projects are properly evaluated, the engineers can seek out different stakeholders, identify their concerns, if any, and incorporate them into the project. Open discussions with concerned stakeholders can be very helpful even before project feasibility studies and environmental impact studies are completed.

As the project develops, the engineer should not shy away from public hearings and should be willing to get involved in resolving controversy. Even during construction and operations of completed projects, the engineer should be sensitive to concerns and disputes and offer to provide object advice whenever it would be constructive.

In a recent speech given in September 2001, Maurice Strong outlined what he believes must be achieved at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit for Sustainable Development. Engineers can make major contributions to many of his points. His speech is available at http://www.unu.edu/interlink/papers/Strong.doc In addition, at the annual conference of FIDIC in 2000, Mr. Strong gave a speech that strongly supported engineers.

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Environmental Impacts and Costs

Many of the procedures for conducting environmental impact analyses were developed in the USA in the 1960s. Even though the approaches to evaluating potential environmental problems have gradually improved, environmental impact studies can be wasteful and ineffective.

Typically, the environmental studies are performed in the following way. Ecological and other environmental studies are often started after the project site has been selected and feasibility studies have been started or completed. By this time, the project may have already drawn attention from concerned citizens and environmental non-governmental organizations. In these cases, the environmental studies may become a battleground between those who wish the project to go ahead and those who wish to have it stopped. Advocates and project opponents may perform independent studies, creating wasteful investigations, significant legal costs and confrontations that may lead to stopping the project or causing lengthy delays.

If the project is finally approved, there may be little monitoring of construction or the performance of the completed project. As a result, the actual impacts may differ from those predicted in the original studies.

Better approaches to environmental studies on projects would reduce time, money and effort in approving projects, and would decrease the negative environmental impacts of projects. Environmental studies should start sooner and continue longer. The potential project should be compatible with the local or national strategic plan and should strike a good balance between serving local populations and protecting the environment. Baseline studies of the regional environment should be made years before projects are considered. In the planning studies, environmental constraints, if any, can be considered more completely when all of the project options are identified. The project cost-benefit analyses should attempt to consider all the direct and indirect environmental costs, and should consider cultural and sociologic issues.

If some form of economic development is needed, efforts should be made to identify all parties who may have a legitimate reason to be concerned about the potential projects. The planning of environmental studies should include as much direct input as possible from all stakeholders when project options are being considered. By listening to the concerns of everyone early in the planning process, it may be possible to avoid wasting energy, time and money in confrontation and legal action.

Environmental monitoring of the project should be continued during and after construction, and should continue throughout the life of the project. Provisions should be made to modify the design, if necessary, where the environmental impacts differ from those predicted.

Different approaches for accounting for environmental costs and intangibles have been attempted in recent years, including accounting for environmental liabilities in the value of a nation's gross national product. To the best of our knowledge, practical approaches have yet to be developed that would alter conventional accounting practices to factor in the direct and indirect environmental costs of a facility through its life-cycle of operations.

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Direct Assistance Programs

There are several ways that direct assistance could be provided to developing countries in a manner that would be technically sound, commercially feasible and environmentally as well as culturally appropriate. These go beyond just making knowledge available. Hands-on approaches could include the following:

• Creating a network of expert volunteers willing to provide advice, help plan and finance projects and provide help in the field.

• Encouraging engineering firms that have extensive experience to partner with engineers in less-developed countries. This teaming, built into project requirements, could be an effective way to increase the capabilities of local engineering firms.

• Using volunteers with little experience to learn while helping to plan and construct simple projects. Such efforts, naturally, should be appropriately supervised.

• Creating regional development centers that would coordinate regional teams of consulting engineers, international lenders, local university personnel, environmental scientists and other volunteers. Such centers could be used as a substitute for sending students to European or American universities. The centers could be tailored to meet the needs of less-developed countries, including using technology that would be accepted culturally and could be maintained locally.
  

Several existing programs deserve to be expanded:

• The Water for People program teams experts from the American Water Works Association (AWWA) with local experts and volunteers in less-developed countries. Water for People (http://www.water4people.com) is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1991 and draws volunteers from the 57,000 members of AWWA.

• Engineers Without Borders-USA (http://www.ewb-usa.org) represents a new approach by involving students with their engineering professors to plan and execute small projects in impoverished towns. To date, this program, led by Professor Bernard Amadei at the University of Colorado, has undertaken projects in Belize, Mali, Mauritania, Peru and Haiti.

• Another organization that uses thousands of volunteers each year is the Earthwatch Institute (http://earthwatch.org). This organization has 50,000 members and supporters, and each year 3500 volunteers work with 120 research scientists on projects in over 50 countries. Almost all of these projects involve scientific investigations, but the program could be adapted to include engineering baseline studies and assistance in less-developed countries.

• FIDIC is advocating a program that would pair experienced engineering firms with their peers in less-developed countries. This program would allow mentoring and hands-on help to build capacity in countries where the consulting engineering profession is not strongly developed. Ideally, such a program would be incorporated into projects by international funding agencies. For information on the FIDIC policies regarding the transfer of technology, see their web site at http://fidic.com/about/statement03.asp

• SANet (http://sustainablealternatives.net) is a technology transfer knowledge management and support system that aims to replicate successful applications of technology. SANet cuts across country boundaries and economic sectors and supports the implementation of international environmental agreements. The partnership builds on established communication channels of more than 150 national and regional member organizations, including FIDIC, WFEO and other international associations.

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Policy, Principles and Partnerships

Engineers should move beyond their disciplines to evaluate alternatives and to affect policy changes toward sustainable development. They should develop partnerships with other design professionals, economists and social, environmental and physical scientists to arrive at ecologically sustainable solutions. This means that engineers, along with other technical participants, should actively engage in the full life cycle of decision-making processes, including the interdisciplinary process of building the evaluation/decision framework and the infrastructure to realize the required sustainable future. These concepts are elaborated in a speech by WFEO President José Medem (Word, 36KB).

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