Sustainability - Its Incorporation into the Engineering Design Process

Sustainability and the protection of the planet has always been important but recent years has shown an increased awareness in environmental protection and sustainability. This Thesis investigates the role of design as the instigator of sustainable life cycle products. Sustainable design methods are introduced including a measurement system using the metric of Embodied Energy. Measurement enables a ground-to-executive management system to be applied and a feedback mechanism which provides data for product improvement through to global decision making. A data collection and feedback algorithm has been devised so that a full system of Sustainability instigation-application-control-feedback is presented. Appropriate sustainable design techniques will improve our habitation and help to protect the living environment of our lifeboat planet.