Do no harm, leave no trace, engineering students told

“Leave no trace.” Concordia alumnus Mario Ciaramicoli (BEng 02) applied this hikers’ motto to the vocation of engineering. He contends that spiraling energy costs and ever-diminishing resources mean engineers must design projects with limited negative environmental impact.

Ciaramicoli was speaking in a panel discussion about sustainable development at the third annual Engineering: A Profession, A Passion event, held at Concordia under the auspices of the Ordre des ingénieurs de Québec (OIQ).

Henri Paul Martel, of Aéroports de Montréal, remembered the 1976 James Bay project as the first time he encountered an environmental overseer on the job site.

“We suddenly had to integrate what we’d always done with environmental concerns,” he said. “There was at least one time where I thought we might have a fist fight.”

Professor Maria Elektorowicz acknowledged that sustainability was once considered an oxymoron in relation to engineering. Decision-making was supposed to be based on “technical and financial considerations.” Many greener alternatives, in materials or design, are initially more expensive, in contradiction to engineers’ mandate to keep costs low.