Reflections on Sustainable Futures: The Trade-Off Challenge
Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering and The Olin Corporation present The John McClanahan Henske Distinguished Lecture in Chemical Engineering
“Reflections on Sustainable Futures: The Trade-Off Challenge”
Michael Kavanaugh
PhD, P.E., BCEE, NAE
Senior Principal
Geosyntec Consultants, Inc.
In 1987, the United Nations World Council on Economic Development published "Our Common Future" (Oxford Press, 1987), the first major international publication outlining a recommended path forward for achieving "sustainable development". Since that publication, the technical literature on sustainability has proliferated, with widespread but not universal agreement on the urgency of defining a sustainable path forward on a global scale. Inevitably, however, all economic development decisions confront a "trade-off" problem, encapsulated in the second law of thermodynamics. For environmental professionals, who often have a lead role in development projects, the "trade-off" challenge has become more complex over the past 50 years. In this lecture, I will provide reflections on the evolution of the sustainability paradigm in the U.S. over the past decades, drawing on case studies illustrating the "trade-off" challenge, and on findings in two recent National Research Council (NRC) reports that provide guidance on how sustainability concepts could be integrated into decision making in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The so-called "Green Book" ("Sustainability and the U.S. EPA",NRC, 2011) recommends a sustainability and assessment process for EPA decisions, while the more recent study ("Sustainability Concepts in Decision-Making", NRC, 2014) assesses the applicability of a suite of tools and approaches for implementing the recommended process. In the absence of legislative mandates on sustainability goals, I will illustrate, using case studies, for example, groundwater restoration at Superfund sites and desalination for water supply resiliency in California, the need for a pragmatic, science-based, adaptive management approach to balancing the many factors in the economic, environmental, and social pillars encompassing the sustainability paradigm and the increasing importance for a technically defensible risk-based approach to restoration and development decisions.
Bio: Dr. Kavanaugh is a Senior Principal with Geosyntec Consultants, Inc. located in Oakland, CA. He is a registered professional engineer in California, a Board Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE), certified in water/wastewater, hazardous waste management and sustainability, and a fellow of the Water Environment Federation. He has over 40 years of consulting experience. He is also a Consulting Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He has a B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively and a PhD in Civil/Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley. Dr. Kavanaugh was elected into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 1998.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
10:30AM
Becton Seminar Room MC035
10 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
This series of lectures is named in honor of John M. Henske. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on June 3, 1923. After spending two years at Yale University, he served in the army with the Corps of Engineers from 1943 to 1946 and then returned to Yale to graduate in 1948 with degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Industrial Administration. He joined Dow Chemical Company in 1948 as a research engineer and became a vice-president in 1968. In 1969 Mr. Henske joined Olin Corporation as group vice president for chemicals and later served as a director and as president (1973-1980 and 1983-1985) and chief executive officer (1978-1987).
In addition to his leadership roles in Dow and Olin he left a legacy of constructive activity in professional societies, higher education and community service. Under his chairmanship in 1979-1980 the Chemical Manufacturers Association embarked on new directions. He served as chairman of the United Negro College Fund and served his alma mater in numerous ways. He was a trustee of Stamford Hospital and Yale-New Haven Hospital and was the creative force behind the innovative Science Park in New Haven.
The John McClanahan Henske Distinguished Lectures in Chemical Engineering are made possible by a fund established by Olin Corporation. They are administered by the Department of Chemical Engineering, Yale University. The series was launched in September, 1989, when Rutherford Aris, (Regents Professor, University of Minnesota), and Frederick J. Krambeck, (Manager of Process Development, Mobil Research and Development Corporation), presented lectures on “Reactions in Continuous Mixtures.”
The John M. Henske lectures are made possible by a gift from the Olin Corporation administered by the School of Engineering & Applied Science, the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Yale University.
Host: menachem.elimelech@yale.edu
Inquiries: deaja.briscoe@yale.edu