Sustainability engineering for the future

Abstract

This Special Volume of the Journal of Cleaner Production focuses on the "Sustainability Engineering for the Future". It highlights the roles of present and future engineers and provides guidelines and insights on how sustainability can be embedded systematically into all dimensions of engineering. Gone are the days when engineers only focus on technical and economic feasibility of a system design. The challenges of global warming brought about by widespread environmental pollution, resource depletion, rising human population, and multiple threats to food, water and energy securities require a paradigm shift in engineering thinking and ways to find and test solutions. The evolving engineering paradigm increasingly calls for engineers to consider the whole spectrum of sustainability i.e. from the economic, environmental, social and time dimensions. A selection of papers presented in the 6th International Conference of Process Systems Engineering Asia (PSE Asia) held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 25th to 27th June 2013 is included in this Special Volume. The papers in this volume focus upon:Important considerations for the planning and development of sustainable products;Models and methods designed to support sustainable planning and management;Effective sustainability assessment tools and the needs for new ones;New approaches for improved resource management;Illustrative future, sustainable technologies;Ways policies will play significant roles in promoting implementation of sustainable engineering approaches.The collection of papers as designed to provide guidelines for present and future engineers, researchers, academicians and policy makers for ways to improve current and future trends in engineering to help catalyse the transition to truly sustainable societies with improved quality of life.