Engineering the Future for Sustainability: Measuring and Communicating Our Progress: Proceedings of a Forum (2024)
Chapter: Front Matter
Engineering the Future
for Sustainability
Measuring and Communicating Our Progress
PROCEEDINGS OF A FORUM
Prepared by Steve Olson
for the
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
www.nap.edu
NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001
NOTICE: The subject of this publication is the forum titled Engineering the Future for Sustainability: Measuring and Communicating Our Progress, held during the 2023 annual meeting of the National Academy of Engineering.
Opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the forum participants and not necessarily the views of the National Academy of Engineering.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-72533-0
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-72533-X
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/28835
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Suggested citation: National Academy of Engineering. 2024. Engineering the Future for Sustainability: Measuring and Communicating Our Progress: Proceedings of a Forum. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/28835.
The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by an Act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private, nongovernmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology. Members are elected by their peers for outstanding contributions to research. Dr. Marcia McNutt is president.
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Preface
Sustainability means different things to different people. For example, the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals include the end of poverty and hunger, the development of clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, responsible consumption and production, good health and quality education, and social aims like peace, justice, and gender equality. None of these goals is typically the direct object of engineering, but engineering is influential in each of them and will be essential to reaching every single one of them.
Even more challenging than defining sustainability is measuring progress toward a sustainable future. What gets measured gets done, and measurements are critical to society’s acceptance of the fact that progress is occurring. As with the definition of sustainability, the choice of metrics against which to gauge progress is a social process. But engineers create the tools and methods for measuring sustainability, which means that their contributions are vital if society is to achieve the buy-in needed to move toward sustainability.
The theme of the 2023 annual meeting of the National Academy of Engineering, which was held in Washington, DC, on October 1–2, was “Engineering the Future for Sustainability.” A highlight of the meeting was a plenary presentation entitled “Sustainability: The Defining Challenge and Opportunity of the 21st Century” by Arun Majumdar, the Jay Precourt Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Energy Science and Engineering at Stanford University, the founding dean of Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, a senior fellow and former director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, and the founding director of the US Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA–E). Following his presentation, the annual NAE forum featured three distinguished practitioners speaking on “Engineering the Future for Sustainability: Measuring and Communicating Our
Progress”: Sarah Kapnick, chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; David Allen, the Norbert Dittrich-Welch Chair in Chemical Engineering, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, and co-director of the Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab at the University of Texas at Austin; and Erkan Erdem, partner and national leader of economic services practice at KPMG LLP. As in previous years, the forum was superbly moderated by mechanical engineer, television host, and entrepreneur Deanne Bell, the founder and chief executive officer of Future Engineers. Recordings of the plenary presentation and forum, along with other parts of the NAE annual meeting, are available at https://www.nae.edu/299313/2023AnnualMeeting.
I would like to thank Michaela Curran and Kim Middleton from the NAE Membership Office, Eileen Erickson and her team from the Office of Outreach and Communications, and the 2023 NAE Annual Meeting Program Committee. Steve Olson wrote this summary of the plenary presentation and forum. A special thanks to the chair of the NAE President’s Business Advisory Committee, Tom Degnan, and the chair of the program committee, Anne Roby.
As moderator Deanne Bell said during the forum, the great power of the NAE is its ability to convene the nation’s most brilliant minds, representing a wide range of expertise, to do deep dives into a subject and ask tough questions. Achieving sustainability on this planet is quite likely the greatest challenge engineers—and the communities they serve—will ever face. The NAE will be at the forefront of engineers’ response.
Alton D. Romig Jr.
Executive Officer
National Academy of Engineering
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