by Dr. Braden Allenby, AT&T EH&S Vice President
(Reprinted with permission from the Green Business Letter)

To start with the big picture, it is important to recognize the systemic meaning of the Industrial Revolution and its concomitant changes in our population levels, industrial and agricultural activities, technology systems, and culture. The result is a world in which the dynamics of major natural systems – carbon, nitrogen, hydrologic, sulfur, and heavy metal cycles; ocean and atmospheric patterns; the biosphere at every level from genetic to ecosystem – are dominated by human activity.

Frequently, as in the case of invasive species, the impacts may be unintended and a result of cumulative individual decisions rather than direct engineering – but the results are the same. Managing these perturbations, and the future evolution of tightly coupled human/natural systems, will require the development of a capability to rationally „engineer” them – not in the usual sense of control and precise definition, but through new managerial and engineering approaches which become part of an on-going process of developing sustainably.

This capability is earth systems engineering, the study and practice of engineering technology systems so as to facilitate the active management of the dynamics of coupled natural systems. The goal is not to try to „engineer” natural systems in the traditional sense (engineering as control); with complex systems, such an approach is doomed to failure. Rather, the intent is to assume responsibility for any perturbations of natural systems that result from technological or industrial initiatives, and try to „design” the perturbations, rather than simply letting them happen (or, worse yet, pretending that they won’t).

It sounds daunting, but in some ways we are already experimenting with it. The demand by stakeholders that firms consider the „triple bottom line” – integrated social, economic and environmental performance – is a move, albeit nascent and primitive, towards an earth systems engineering ethic.

How so? Consider the example of biotechnology firms, and the powerful reaction against GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in Europe. Here, many of the firms involved had already gone beyond the traditional role of considering themselves only as profit-oriented entities. Yet, they approached the issue of introducing GMO products as if it were a relatively routine business operation.

In fact, it was quite different: the role of the firm shifted from being a developer and producer of products to being the manager (in the full social sense) of the introduction of critical new technologies with significant social and ethical dimensions. The firm shifted from the usual forms of business management and traditional responsibilities to being an important part of what can be seen as earth systems engineering.