1. Earth Island: Solutions Industrial Engineering & The Environment

2. Lecture 14 Outline Environmental Solutions Some facts about the problem Some Roles for Industrial Engineers –Pollution Prevention in Production Processes –Understanding the Systems Problems –Assessing Systems Sustainability –at Georgia Tech –The Natural Step –Natural Capitalism

3. Frightening Facts 180 million tons of trash/year in U.S. 50% of topsoil Everglades extinct? Loss of species –frogs –we save mountains, not lowlands Water, aquifers

4. More facts Fertility rates Waste Equilibria

5. Pollution Prevention Idea: instead of treating waste, don’t produce it. –Move the environmental solution upstream in the production process,just as we move quality concerns upstream. –Role of I.E.s

6. Understanding Systems Problems Tragedy of Commons. – Example: whales and the IWC – Example: strip mining the ocean floor, where there is a new species every square meter. Limits to Growth –Example: Human Population, now over 6,000,000,000 Transportation Engineering: – Building more highways does not reduce traffic problems. (Why?) It increases oil usage and pollution.

7. Assessing Systems A production process can not always be evaluated in isolation, but must be evaluated in situ, as part of a system IE methods and approaches can help in the evaluation of systems

8. Sustainability The idea: Could we continue our current activities indefinitely?

9. A definition of sustainability (Carol Carmichael, Ga. Tech Center for Sustainability)

10. Sustainability at Georgia Tech We are one of the leading institutions Georgia Tech mission statement Center for Sustainable Technology Project 3: you assess sustainability.

11. The Natural Step Four Principles –Systematic destruction of green space –Systematic removal of material from earth’s crust –Systematic placement of material requiring safeguarding into the environment Founded by Dr. Roberds. Now in many countries. Can we tax resource use rather than profits?

12. Natural Capitalism (Lovinses, Hawken) Paul Hawken in The Ecology of Commerce says that industry must save the environment because it must. It is the only entity powerful enough to do so. Natural Capitalism proposes ideas for a different business mindset. One idea: Provide services, not goods –Example: Ray Anderson’s company Interfaces leases carpet squares

13. Service vs. Product Imagine buying the use of a working automobile for 12 years. Notice how this would change the incentives of the automobile manufacturer.