Proposal # 9421398 New York University This project proposes a program of transdisciplinary collaboration and synthesis. Engineers, ecologist, and organizational scientists at NYU, MIT and Princeton and corporate managers at AT&T. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Phillips Electronics, will research, develop and field test a Sustainablity Impact Assessment System (SIAS). This system will help industrial users to comprehensively identify, project measure, evaluate and communicate the effects o proposed or ongoing industrial actions on environmental and socio-economic systems, using absolute standards of sustainablity rather than relative measures of environmental "friendliness" or "consciousness." It should be applicable to all phases of technology management, including the evaluation, forecasting, planning, and transfer of technology. It should also help to inculcate in corporate managers a new set of societally desirable values regarding the appropriate role of technology in a sustainable world. The project will consist of three phases. During the conceptual development phase, the project team will develop core sustainablity standards, review the state-of-the-art in assessment methodologies, survey industrial firms on their assessment usage, and develop a SIAS prototype. Then during the systems construction phase the project team will convene a sustainablity assessment conference, develop detailed sustainablity metrics and scales, prepare a methodology manual, and hopefully an experimental software package. Finally, during the field testing and deployment phase, the project team will implement and test the system in various industrial organization, documents and analyze the results, and refine and publish them.
