Engineering, markets, and human behavior: an essential integration for decisions toward sustainability

Publication date: December 2019Source: Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, Volume 26Author(s): Bhavik R Bakshi, Tapajyoti Ghosh, Kyuha LeeThe environmental impact of an engineered system depends on factors such as economic policies, efficiency of the technology, and the extent to which it is used in society. Methods for making decisions toward sustainability certainly account for technological aspects such as efficiency, but have been lacking in accounting for the broader economic implications such as the effect of markets and human behavior. These shortcomings can result in perverse outcomes: improvement in efficiency may increase environmental impact by encouraging greater consumption. Recent advances in sustainability assessment include methods that range from ignoring the economy to considering price changes and elasticity effects. Methods for sustainable process design are accounting for the macroeconomy by extending the process-to-planet framework to include partial and general equilibrium models of the economy. Such methods are needed to account for the role of the economy and society in determining the impact and sustainability of engineered systems.
Source: Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering - Category: Chemistry Source Type: research