The End of the Engineering Box! - Pittsburgh Engineer

There is an emerging 21st century market condition of global drivers that have exposed weaknesses in established business models and practices. Climate change, financial instability and huge demographic shifts have created a drastically shifting landscape. This highlights the need for transformative thinking and action to create more durable and adaptable societal structures, companies and workforces. The end state that must be reached to overcome these drivers can be thought of as the “green economy.”

The Emerging Green Economy

The green economy is a new global market in which sustainability provides the key competitive advantage and durability the successful organization of the future must embrace. Previously seen as a marketing tactic or a way to conciliate regulators, organizations are now beginning to view sustainability as a necessary tool to create competitive advantage, refresh stagnant business or operations models and remain globally relevant while growing their triple top line asset base of human, natural and financial capital. As organizations and industries transform into green economy businesses, workforces will need to adapt, re-skill and rethink the way they work. Engineers in particular will have the opportunity to play key roles in developing new innovations in response to this new way of conducting business. Of all the professions, this type of “design thinking” to conceptualize new solutions is most aligned to the engineering academy – but only if the engineers can overcome their own temperament.

Green Building – A Market Transformation Model

With buildings as one of the leading consumers of energy and water, as well as significant producers of green house gasses, companies have come to recognize the value of owning and operating high-performance buildings to their financial, human and environmental bottom lines. To date, green building has been one of the most successful and widely adopted sustainable initiatives, and can serve as a model for other parts of the green economy.

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