Embodying Sustainable Practice - In Conversation with Leah Nguyen

Sustainable practice is defined by individual and communal commitments to protecting the environment and its life. Leah believes that sustainability means “saving for the future generations, including resources, greenness and freshness”. Leah is inspired by “growing up in a developing country” where she said that, “I could feel and see development and pollution were happening together”. She grew up questioning “how to stop pollution while having development.”

Her sustainability journey started when she completed her Bachelors and Masters in Infrastructure and Environmental Engineering at Hanoi Architectural University (HAU), Vietnam, where she continued as a lecturer before completing her PhD in life cycle and greenhouse gas assessment for wastewater treatment plants here at UTS. She then worked as an intern for Corporate Carbon Advisory, was a Sustainability Consultant for Edge Impact, and is currently a Sustainability Advisor in Life Cycle Assessment at Laing O'Rourke. 

Leah was also a mentee as part of the Women in STEM Research (WiSR) Mentoring Program. The program inspires academics and researchers at varying stages of their careers to reflect about their career journey and learn from each other’s experiences. She believes that events and discussions between industry professionals and academics can “influence and educate people about sustainability”. This is completed through the sharing of knowledge and updating each other on “the current situation, successes, and lessons learned”. 

Integrating sustainable practice into product development lifecycles and ways of living is a communal effort at an institutional, corporate, and personal level. Leah acknowledges that universities and other educational institutions can play a role by “educating, inspiring and partnering to create sustainability development pathways with science-based targets and evidence”.

The Engineers Australia Competency Standards highlights effective engineers as people who develop sustainable solutions (Engineers Australia, 2012). People with professional knowledge must ensure that their solutions integrate sustainable thinking into all stages of production and the impact of their methodologies is understood and documented. Dr. Nguyen highlights an example from her professional field by stating, “from the pre-design stage, we can calculate environmental impacts of the proposed materials. By choosing recycled materials that can reduce the waste plus mitigate the negative impact. Renewable energy can help to reduce the burdens during products’ manufacturing, operational and even recycling phase. That’s where we can SAVE non-renewable resources”. Although this may sound like a daunting task, engineers are not alone. Through collaborating with other engineering and IT professionals, people of knowledge across a wide range of fields such as education, business, and law, resource management can be approached in an informed way. As Leah notes, engineers will “succeed if they inspire and cooperate with people in other fields”.

Being an engineering professional and academic is not the only way we can be sustainable. Leah believes everyone can embody sustainable practice through the “3Rs”: “reduce personal waste, reuse as much as you can, choose recyclable things or things with recycled components.”

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Sustainability is a collaborative effort and people like Leah lead the way to actualise a clean future where materials are abundant and nature is protected. We invite you to reflect on a strategy to embody sustainability this coming month and tag us @utswieit on Instagram or add your thoughts to our Teams channel.

References

• Engineers Australia. (2021, Jun 5). Stage 2 competency standard for professional engineers. Engineers Australia. https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/publications/stage-2-competency-standard-professional-engineers