Sep 13, 2025

An Intersection Between Engineering and Sustainability

Aerin C
Engineering, Sustainability
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In the modern world, young people grapple with the daunting prospects of university and the future while also contemplating the burning world around them. Sustainability has reaffirmed its importance in our lives in 2025, with notable events including the Palisade and Eaton Fires in January, Earthquakes in Southeast Asia, flash flooding globally, and more. One possible career path for STEM students is engineering, but how does sustainability find its place in a stereotypical workplace surrounded by mathematics, physics, circuit boards, and other technical fields?

In a product’s life cycle, 80% of its environmental impact is determined during product development, according to Chitkara University. An engineer has a stake in this process through the main product design but also through the choice of materials, manufacturing processes, and suppliers. The core principles of one aspect of sustainability are the reuse, reduce, recycle and repurposing. By focusing on those aspects, such as choosing recycled materials instead, waste can be minimised, and perhaps a competitive edge in an industry with high environmental needs can be achieved. A reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is one of the benefits of merging sustainability with engineering in the sphere of product design.

Through a lens of civil engineering, our urban landscape is becoming increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and heatwaves. Cities are becoming pressured to adapt to this rapidly heating world, thus creating an opportunity for civil engineers to aid with sustainable urbanisation. For example, water supply and management systems can be designed by civil engineers to promote water conservation and water usage. Or waste management systems with designs to increase the efficiency of landfills, maximising recycling. In cities where flooding is becoming commonplace, the abilities of a civil engineer can save lives. By preventing erosion through retaining walls or sediment fences, to designing dams and water flow systems, sudden water level rise can be managed, preserving the economy of the local area and increasing the resilience of the community.

On another page, mechanical engineers can find opportunities in sustainability with renewable energy. Hydroelectric, solar and wind are more environmentally friendly than burning fossil fuels. Designing of turbines, energy storage systems and generators while also optimising the efficiency of those machines is highly important. Michigan State University in collaboration with Arizona State University engineers, was awarded a 2 million USD grant in 2021 for an energy storage solution that used magnesium and manganese oxide to transform energy from renewable sources into stored chemicals for later use. Pumped hydropower is one of the most common renewable energy storage methods in the US. Although it is effective and has low maintenance costs, the building of infrastructure requires a long time and is limited to areas with water. The chemical battery alternative aids energy to be stored longer and distributes energy more evenly around countries. This solution will be highly relied on during sudden power outages.

Although engineering in sustainability may come in a more traditional package, innovative solutions such as Studio Roosegaarde’s Smog Free Tower, the world’s first smog vacuum cleaner, may appeal to the more creative aspiring engineers. By using positive ionization technology, 30,000 m^3 of air per hour is cleaned. The process works by using a positive electrode surrounded by air molecules, and dust particles become positively charged and attracted to a negative electrode. Particles that usually escape air filtering systems are now able to be removed from our atmosphere, protecting the air quality for thousands of people daily. Another benefit of this engineering marvel is the little energy needed and high quantity of air processed; the electricity can be generated through renewable sources as well.

Another fascinating technological leap to a more sustainable future is the use of electrodialysis to recover precious metals for further use, overall reducing scrap metal. A key industry where this is needed is the production of electric vehicles, where rare earth metals from batteries need to be recovered to be reused. Electrodialysis uses an electric field to remove ions through permeable membranes. To simplify a complicated process, cations move in one direction, while anions move in the opposite direction, usually used to desalinate water, engineers now use this method on metal cations. Some elements successfully recovered through these methods include zinc, iron, cadmium, silver, chromium, nickel, lithium and more.

Additionally, in green buildings, engineers have pioneered sustainable concrete to be used in their designs. Originally developed as a solution to the acid corrosion of concrete in sewage systems, RMIT University in Australia has created concrete from hydrated lime, nano-silica, slag and fly ash (a byproduct of burning coal), which not only reuses waste material but also is stronger than Portland concrete. There are possibilities for the use of this in infrastructure and construction in the future. Furthermore, coffee bricks have been created as part of the project. of using sand, coffee grounds collected from Melbourne cafes were used during the pandemic. In 2024, the coffee was used alongside biochar in road construction.

Photo Credit to HiVis Pictures from rmit.edu.au

Slag from steel production was also used in the project; it had a high capability of absorbing wastewater contaminants such as metals and phosphates, making it ideal to be used in the acidic environment of the sewage system. According to the World Economic Forum, global cement manufacturing produced 1.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 in 2022; hence, there is a need for this material to be further researched and developed. Other universities have pioneered adding carbon dioxide to the concrete to reduce the issue.

Overall, the incorporation of sustainability in engineering proves to be promising and exciting as innovation progresses. Many projects are collaborative and interdisciplinary, which shows the exciting frontiers the students of today will experience and participate in in the future. As a student who aspires to become an engineer and has a passion for saving the planet, sustainable engineering will be one of the career paths I look into.