The engineering community at large, and the civil engineering community in particular, has the opportunity and arguably the obligation to promote a development agenda that considers not only the economics of development, but also the health of the environment and society at large. In this paper, we contemplate the challenge of sustainable development and its effect on project scale and scope. We discuss the inherent opportunity to drive the "creative destruction" of the development industry, using innovation to exploit inefficiencies in the planning and management of engineering systems to create a range of "future" products and services that challenge existing practice. We review the impact of procurement policy, contract pricing, prescriptive codes, and public policy on innovation. Several examples of innovative design and sustainable development introduced into the planning and management of Canadian civil engineering projects are provided. We assert that the most effective means of promoting the sustainability of built environment and civil infrastructure systems will be through inter- and intra-industry collaboration with the support of public policy-makers.Key words: sustainable development, civil, engineering, infrastructure, innovation, creative destruction, environment, collaboration.

Widespread clastic deposits, 80-1800 m long, on the eastern side of the Sawtooth Range are the result of debris flow and slushflow. Small hillslope debris flows (10-103 m3), originating on talus slopes at the mountain front and not associated with preexisting gullies, and large channelized debris flows (103-104 m3), debouching from basins within the mountains, are comparable morphologically to those in other high-latitude and high-altitude environments. Channelized deposits are often modified by the effects of slushflow and fluvial activity. Provisional lichen growth curves for the area were produced by correlation of thallus size with the enlargement of ice-wedge polygon troughs. Lichenometry and aerial photograph interpretation were used to estimate the age of deposits so that event frequencies and rates of geomorphic work could be calculated. Vertical transport by rapid mass movements during the 20th Century averaged 17 x 103 Mg ·m ·a-1 ·km-2 ( ± half an order of magnitude), corresponding to a rock denudation rate of 0.05 mm ·a-1 for the basins and peaks feeding the east-facing slopes. Channelized debris flow produced more than 70% of this transport. Several of these large flows occurred in each of the three periods of 30-35 years examined, so their recurrence intervals are substantially shorter than values reported from locations in northern Scandinavia and Spitzbergen.

No abstract

The successful management of significant organisational change, which may be manifested through innovations in technologies, products, markets, processes and organisational forms, frequently requires facilitation and expertise-not all of which is available to firms in-house. In this paper we test the hypothesis that large firms offering professional services have the competence and legitimacy necessary to assume a significant role in facilitating strategic business responses to the challenge of sustainability and thereby creating competitive advantage for their clients. A number of these firms and their existing and potential clients were surveyed to identify their current and future potential role(s) in this area. With their ability to convene multidisciplinary teams of strategic advisors, such firms appear to have some competitive strengths with respect to sustainability consulting and third-party auditing and verification. However, the scope of services offered by firms with respect to sustainable development does not always appear to be consistent with the main challenges facing their clients. Furthermore, the firms' perceptions of how they are positioned in the value chain differs from that of some of their potential clients. We conclude that this may be linked to a number of factors, not least the firms' perceived credibility and legitimacy.• Professional services firms • Sustainable development• Sustainability• Accounting • Innovation• Management of change • Verification• Strategy • ConsultingJames Hartshorn is a senior consultant and environmental management specialist in the Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, office of Golder Associates Ltd, an international employee-owned consulting engineering company specialising in the application of earth sciences and engineering to environmental, natural resource and civil engineering projects. His current interests include corporate governance for sustainable development and the operationalisation of sustainable development policy. Mr Hartshorn completed his academic training at Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, and at the University of Toronto specialising in geomorphology. He has recently completed a master's degree in business administration and a graduate diploma in business and sustainability at York University, Toronto.

No abstract