ENVE 101 : Introduction to Environmental Engineering Chapter VI

Chapter- VIII

GREEN ENGINEERING AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT

8.1 Green Engineering

Green engineering is the design, discovery, and implementation of engineering solutions with an
awareness of potential benefits and problems in terms of the environment, the economy, the
society throughout the lifetime of the design. The green engineering approach is scalable and
applies across molecular, product, process, and system design. This approach is as broad as the
disciplines of engineering themselves and relies on the traditions of innovation, creativity, and
brilliance that engineers use to find new solutions to any challenge. The goal of green engineering
is to minimize adverse impacts while simultaneously maximizing benefits to the economy,
society, and environment.

8.2 Principles of Green Engineering

The Twelve Principles of Green Engineering provide a framework for understanding green
engineering. They also represent the techniques that can be used to make engineered solutions
more sustainable. The 12 principles should be thought of not as rules, laws, or inviolable
standards. They are instead a set of guidelines for thinking in-terms of sustainable design criteria.

The Twelve Principles are:

i. Inherent Rather Than Circumstantial

Designers need to strive to ensure that all materials and energy inputs and outputs are as
inherently nonhazardous as possible.

ii. Prevention Instead of Treatment

It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it is formed.

iii. Design for Separation

Separation and purification operations should be designed to minimize energy consumption and
materials use.

iv. Maximize Efficiency

Products, processes, and systems should be designed to maximize mass, energy, space, and time
efficiency.

v. Output-Pulled Versus Input-Pushed

Products, processes, and systems should be "output pulled" rather than "input pushed" through
the use of energy and materials.

vi. Conserve Complexity

Embedded entropy and complexity must be viewed as an investment when making design
choices on recycle, reuse, or beneficial disposition.

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vii. Durability Rather Than Immortality

Targeted durability, not immortality, should be a design goal.

viii. Meet Need, Minimize Excess

Design for unnecessary capacity or capability (e.g., "one size fits all") solutions should be
considered a design flaw.

ix. Minimize Material Diversity

Material diversity in multicomponent products should be minimized to promote disassembly
and value retention.

x. Integrate Material and Energy Flows

Design of products, processes, and systems must include integration and interconnectivity with
available energy and materials flows.

xi. Design for Commercial "Afterlife"

Products, processes, and systems should be designed for performance in a commercial
"afterlife."

xii. 12. Renewable Rather Than Depleting

Material and energy inputs should be renewable rather than depleting.

8.3 Design

Embedded in the discussion of green engineering is the word ‘Design’. Design is the engineering stage
where the greatest influence can be achieved in terms of sustainable outcomes. At the design stage,
engineers are able to select and evaluate the properties of the final outcome. This can include material,
chemical, and energy inputs; effectiveness and efficiency; aesthetics and form; and intended
specifications such as quality, safety, and performance.

The design stage also represents the time for innovation, brainstorming, and creativity, offering an
occasion to integrate sustainability goals into the specifications of the product, process, or system.
Sustainability should not be viewed as a design constraint. It should be utilized as an opportunity to
leapfrog existing ideas or designs and drive innovative solutions that consider systematic benefits and
impacts over the life-time of the design. This potential is shown in Fig. 8.1. The content of the Figure 8.1
demonstrates that allowing an increased number of degrees of freedom to solve a challenge, address a
need or provide a service creates more design space to generate sustainable solutions.

For a given investment ( time, energy, resources, capital) potential benefits can be realized. These
benefits include increased market share, reduced environmental impact, minimized harm to human
health, and improved quality of life. In the case where constraints require merely optimizing the existing
solutions or making incremental improvements, some modest gains can be achieved. However, if the
degrees of freedom within the design space can be increased, more benefits can be realized. This is
because the engineer has an opportunity to design a new solution that may appear very different in form
but provides the same service. This may pose challenges if the new design is too embedded into an

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existing and constrained system. Ultimately , the most benefits can be achieved when the engineer
designs with the most degrees of freedom- at the highest system scale – to ensure that each component
within the system is sustainable, performs with the other system components, and meets the overall
intended propose.

Fig. 8.1 : Increasing Potential Benefits with Increasing Degrees of Design Freedom for a Given Investment
( Allowing an increased number of degrees of freedom to solve a problem frees up more design space to
innovate and generate sustainable solutions)

8.4 Pollution Prevention, Design for Environment, Industrial Ecology, Sustainability (Read from
Mihelcic and Zimmerman)
8.5 INHERENCY (Read from Mihelcic and Zimmerman)
8.6 Life Cycle ( Refer previous chapters)
8.7 System thinking ( Refer previous chapters)
8.8 Resilience (Read from Mihelcic and Zimmerman)
8.9 Products vs. services (Read from Mihelcic and Zimmerman)

9. BUILT ENVIRONMENT ( Read from Mihelcic and Zimmerman)

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