"While industry used to be a main reason for environmental degradation, it is increasingly becoming part of the solution to environmental problems."

- Gro Harlem Brundtland

If you want to compare how projects minimize impacts on the environment, and improve material use efficiency, you can use tools that quantify the sustainability of engineering practices. These tools are increasingly important for today's engineers, who are expected to conserve the natural resources that the economy relies on, and to redirect unsustainable practices to more sustainable ones.

Most of these tools are being developed in interdisciplinary fields emerging from traditional engineering and economics, because the problems created by unsustainable development may not fall under any single discipline. Pollution prevention, for example, examines raw materials, energy and disposal, in order to avoid emitting a pollutant at a lower cost than an "end-of-pipe" technology would.

If you are interested in learning more about these fields after completing this module, there are references offered at the end of the module. For college seniors and job seekers who are interested in sustainable engineering, the module also offers useful resources, and concludes with a discussion about the current state and possible future directions of sustainability in engineering.

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