Introducing Engineering Systems Design: A New Engineering Perspective on the Challenges of Our Times

Abstract

Introduction: Creating a Humane Society Society seems to be stuck with effectively addressing, moving on, and resolving the major problems of our times. Production and consumption are too high for being maintained by the Earth and efforts to adapt to sustainable levels need proper appreciation of the interconnected nature of our world. All is interconnected -in nature, in engineering, in societies -and any effort to change one part to improve society is therefore typically affected by and affecting multiple feedback-and feedforward loops, including potential rebound effects in other parts of the world. The proposition advanced in this Handbook of Engineering Systems Design is that engineering is creating the means to navigate and cut through this impasse and to achieve societal transitions. Engineering researchers and practitioners have developed an engineering systems perspective on our world by which changes can be realised through design interventions in these engineering systems. In this Handbook we have collected the state of the art about this novel and urgently needed design approach to interventions in sociotechnical engineering systems, and can now share it with engineers, researchers and policy makers to improve our societies.Our current world is one that is to a large extent shaped and maintained by engineers (Subrahmanian et al. 2018) with the aim of creating a humane society (Simon 1981: 162). Our food, our clothes, our buildings, our transport and communication devices, and much more, are made available and maintained by applications of technologies developed by engineers. As a species we have been prospering with these engineering efforts, as our welfare, our life-expectancy and the number of people living on Earth have continuously risen in the last centuries. These rises have in turn led to new problems, which are currently deepening with climate change and the depletion of resources.We find ourselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, the world appears to be stuck when we try to improve it. Production is complex, consumption habitually entrenched, and demand and disparity are high. On the other hand, we need to move fast and in informed directions. Our annual demand has for some time already exceeded what the Earth can renew in a year. This ecological overshoot had in 2008 reached a 50% deficit, meaning that it takes the Earth 1.5 years to generate the renewable resources that people use and absorb the CO 2 waste they produce, in 1 year. And some resources will be depleted for good. The consequences of excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are clearly noticeable. Climate change and ocean acidification places additional stress on biodiversity and ecosystems, which in turn has direct impact on depletion of life space. These and other major societal challenges of our time -climate change, food security, financial security, health inequities -cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems and opportunities, meaning that they are all interconnected and interdependent. And from a system...