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Re-envisioning Innovation for Sustainability

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EcoMechatronics

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Abstract

The chapter explores the concept of sustainability and its associated challenges within a mechatronics context. The primary aim is to promote critical thinking and innovation within an EcoMechatronics framing, i.e., via an application of mechatronics that at its core works with nature (rather than against it). Innovative technology per se is neither a force for good nor bad. However, EcoMechatronics permits a broader approach to innovation by considering socioenvironmental aspects as instrumental to improved performance, not as mere ‘add ons’. Throughout the chapter, the authors tease out how innovation for sustainability can be so much more than merely doing ‘less bad’ (e.g. fewer emissions or less waste) when we are capable of doing ‘more good’, for example, by improving the soil or capturing and regenerating energy that would otherwise have dissipated. While the authors do compare two potential braking systems within an EcoMechatronics framing, their goal is not to provide a tick box methodology or a one-size-fits-all answer but instead to provoke deeper questioning and reflection that enables mechatronics practitioners to sustainably innovate according to their own specific set of circumstances and challenges.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    HOP—Stop Planned Obsolescence.

  2. 2.

    Energy Transition Law.

  3. 3.

    For instance by producing less carbon emissions or solid waste.

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Acknowledgements

Kai Whiting acknowledges the financial support by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique—FNRS under Grant No CR40001149. Luis Gabriel Carmona acknowledges the financial support of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 101027892.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Abertay University, Dundee, UK

    Eddie Simpson

  2. Université Catholique de Louvain, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Kai Whiting

  3. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Luis Gabriel Carmona

Authors
  1. Eddie Simpson
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  2. Kai Whiting
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  3. Luis Gabriel Carmona
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Correspondence to Eddie Simpson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Wels, Austria

    Peter Hehenberger

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt

    Maki Habib

  3. Abertay University, Dundee, UK

    David Bradley

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Simpson, E., Whiting, K., Carmona, L.G. (2022). Re-envisioning Innovation for Sustainability. In: Hehenberger, P., Habib, M., Bradley, D. (eds) EcoMechatronics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07555-1_2

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