CVEN 5019 · Integrated Core · Fall 2026 · Week 1
Sustainable Technology Design
& Systems Thinking
Principles for the Design of Sustainable Technologies — why technology is simultaneously the problem and a key part of the solution, and the systems lens we need to navigate that tension.
Instructor Carlo Salvinelli Program MS Sustainable Engineering & Sustainable Business CU Boulder Fall 2026 · Term B
Session Overview
What We Cover Today
  • Part 1 — The Sustainability Imperative: Why this course, why now, what's at stake
  • Part 2 — Planetary Boundaries & SDGs: The scientific constraints and normative goals framing technology design
  • Part 3 — Systems Thinking Toolkit: Stocks, flows, feedback loops, leverage points, causal loop diagrams
  • Part 4 — Course Assessment Toolkit: Preview of GHG accounting, DMRV, and LCA as systems lenses
  • Discussion: Map a technology you use daily as a system
Session Learning Objectives
  • Define sustainable technology design and explain what distinguishes it from conventional design
  • Describe planetary boundaries and the SDG framework and their relevance to engineering and business decisions
  • Apply stocks-and-flows and feedback loop thinking to a technology system
  • Identify leverage points for intervening in complex systems
  • Sketch a causal loop diagram (CLD) for a simple sociotechnical system
The Sustainability Imperative — Why Now?
424
ppm CO₂ in atmosphere (2024) — highest in 3 million years
+1.3°C
average global warming above pre-industrial baseline (2023)
9 of 17
UN SDGs currently off track for 2030 target
$4.5T
annual investment gap in sustainable infrastructure
"Technology is simultaneously the cause of our sustainability crisis and the most powerful lever we have for solving it — but only when designed with a full understanding of the systems it inhabits."
Planetary Boundaries (Rockström et al., 2009; updated 2023)
Nine Earth system processes that define a safe operating space for humanity. 6 of 9 are now exceeded.
Climate Change
Exceeded
Biosphere Integrity
Exceeded — High risk
Land-System Change
Exceeded
Freshwater Use
Exceeded (2022)
Novel Entities (chemicals, plastics)
Exceeded
Biogeochemical Flows (N & P)
Exceeded
Ocean Acidification
Approaching boundary
Atmospheric Aerosol Loading
Within safe zone
Stratospheric Ozone
Recovering
For technology designers: planetary boundaries translate abstract limits into hard design constraints. We must operate within these boundaries — not just minimize harm.
UN Sustainable Development Goals — The 2030 Agenda
  • 17 goals, 169 targets, 232 indicators — adopted by 193 nations in 2015
  • SDGs as a shared global language for evaluating technology impact — not just compliance, but a design goal framework
  • Engineering-critical SDGs: SDG 6 (Clean Water), SDG 7 (Affordable Energy), SDG 9 (Industry & Infrastructure), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption), SDG 13 (Climate Action)
  • Business-critical SDGs: SDG 8 (Decent Work), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), SDG 17 (Partnerships)
  • Key challenge: SDGs can trade off against each other — e.g., SDG 7 (energy access) vs. SDG 13 (climate) if achieved through fossil fuels
  • This course will use SDGs as an impact mapping tool alongside LCA and GHG accounting
SDGs Most Relevant to This Course
SDG 6
Water
SDG 7
Energy
SDG 9
Industry
SDG 11
Cities
SDG 12
Consumption
SDG 13
Climate
SDG 14
Life Below Water
SDG 15
Life on Land
SDG 17
Partnerships
What Is Sustainable Technology Design?
  • Brundtland definition (1987): Meeting current needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet their own — applied to how we design, deploy, and retire technology
  • Triple bottom line (Elkington, 1994): Environmental performance + Social equity + Economic viability — all three, simultaneously
  • Key design question: How do we measure and compare the sustainability of competing technology options? That's exactly what this course equips you to do.
  • Beyond eco-design: Sustainable technology design also addresses who benefits and who bears the costs — justice and equity are not optional
Three Dimensions of Sustainable Design
Environmental
Minimize resource depletion, emissions, waste, and biodiversity impact across the full lifecycle
Social
Protect and promote health, safety, equity, labor rights, and community wellbeing along value chains
Economic
Create durable value without externalizing environmental and social costs onto society
Sustainability is not a feature to add on — it must be designed in from the start, with data.
Part 2 · Conceptual Toolkit
Systems Thinking
Why technologies designed without systems thinking so often produce unintended consequences — and how to see the whole before intervening in the parts.
Technology as a Complex System
  • No technology exists in isolation — it is always embedded in overlapping systems: biophysical, social, economic, and institutional
  • The electric vehicle: simultaneously embedded in lithium supply chains (mining in Chile/DRC), electricity grids (coal vs. renewable), urban mobility systems, labor markets, and battery recycling infrastructure
  • Jevons Paradox: efficiency improvements can increase total resource consumption if demand responds — e.g., fuel-efficient cars enabling more driving
  • Systems thinking prevents the "narrow fix" that solves one problem while creating three others
  • Donella Meadows: "You can't understand a system by taking it apart. You have to see it whole."
Systems a Technology Inhabits
Biophysical
Material inputs, energy, water, land, sinks for waste and emissions
Social
Jobs, communities, health, equity, culture, behavioral change
Economic
Markets, prices, subsidies, regulations, financial flows, incentives
Institutional
Laws, standards, norms, governance, international agreements
Stocks & Flows — The Building Blocks
Core Concepts (Meadows, 2008)
  • Stock: any quantity that accumulates or depletes over time — CO₂ in the atmosphere, capital in a firm, species in an ecosystem, trust in an institution
  • Flow: the rate of change into or out of a stock — inflows add, outflows drain
  • Key insight: stocks change slowly, even when flows change suddenly — this creates inertia and delays in sustainability transitions
  • Example: even if all CO₂ emissions stopped today, atmospheric concentration (the stock) would remain elevated for centuries
  • Technology design question: which flows can we realistically modify, and at what rate?
Atmospheric CO₂ Example
Stock
CO₂ in atmosphere (~880 GtC today). Changes slowly regardless of policy action.
Inflows
Fossil fuel combustion (~10 GtC/yr), land-use change (~1.5 GtC/yr), industrial processes
Outflows
Ocean absorption (~2.5 GtC/yr), photosynthesis/land sinks (~3 GtC/yr), BECCS and DAC (nascent)
Design target
Reduce inflows to ≤ outflows. Net zero means inflow = outflow. Carbon negative means outflow exceeds inflow.
Feedback Loops — How Systems Behave
Reinforcing (Positive) Feedback — R
  • Amplifies change in the same direction — produces exponential growth or collapse
  • Climate: Arctic ice melt → lower albedo → more solar absorption → more warming → more ice melt
  • Technology adoption: More EVs → more charging stations → lower range anxiety → more EVs
  • Can be beneficial (virtuous cycles) or dangerous (vicious cycles)
Balancing (Negative) Feedback — B
  • Counteracts change — produces goal-seeking, stabilizing behavior
  • Thermostat: room cools → heater activates → room warms → heater off
  • Carbon pricing: higher CO₂ price → firms reduce emissions → atmospheric CO₂ stabilizes (in theory)
  • Delays in balancing loops cause oscillation and overshoot — a major challenge for climate policy
Technology interventions always introduce new feedback loops — intended and unintended. Systems thinkers map these before deploying at scale.
Leverage Points — Where to Intervene (Meadows, 1999)
Listed from least to most powerful. Most policy focuses on the weakest levers.
Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) — Mapping System Structure
How to Build a CLD
  • Nodes = key variables (stocks, indicators, perceptions)
  • Arrows = causal relationships between variables
  • (+) link: variables change in the same direction — if A↑ then B↑
  • (−) link: variables change in opposite directions — if A↑ then B↓
  • R loop: odd number of (−) links = reinforcing (growth/collapse)
  • B loop: even number of (−) links = balancing (stabilizing)
  • Delays on arrows are critical — they cause oscillation and policy resistance
Example: Solar PV Adoption System
R1 — Virtuous Cycle
Solar deployment → manufacturing scale → lower cost → more deployment → (reinforcing growth)
B1 — Grid Saturation
Solar penetration → grid instability → integration costs → slower adoption → (limits growth)
R2 — Policy Signal
Clean energy investment → emissions reduction → public support → more policy → more investment
Delay to map
Time from policy → permitting → construction → generation: currently 3–7 years for utility solar
Part 3 · Course Toolkit
From Systems Thinking to Measurement
Systems thinking tells us what to look for. The course toolkit gives us the quantitative methods to measure it.
The Three Integrated Methods of This Course
GHG Accounting
Weeks 2–3
→
DMRV
Week 3
→
Process-Level LCA
Week 4
→
Net Zero & Procurement
Week 5
→
Water, Food & Social
Week 6
GHG Accounting
What: Quantify an organization's greenhouse gas emissions across Scope 1, 2, and 3.
Why: You can't manage what you don't measure. Foundation of every net-zero commitment.
DMRV
What: Digital tools — IoT sensors, satellites, AI — that automate emissions measurement, reporting, and verification.
Why: Traditional MRV is slow, expensive, and vulnerable to fraud.
Process-Level LCA
What: ISO 14040 methodology to map environmental impacts across the full lifecycle of a technology or product.
Why: Carbon footprint alone misses water, land use, toxicity, biodiversity.
Extended Impacts
What: Water footprint, food system LCA, social LCA — applying the assessment framework beyond carbon.
Why: Six of nine planetary boundaries already exceeded.
💬
Week 1 · Discussion Activity (15 min)
"Choose a technology you interact with daily. Map it as a system — then identify where a well-intentioned design change might produce an unintended consequence."
Instructions (work in cross-disciplinary pairs — one engineer, one business student):
1. Name the technology and its primary function.
2. Identify 3 systems it is embedded in (e.g., energy system, supply chain, social system).
3. Draw one reinforcing feedback loop and one balancing feedback loop involving that technology.
4. Identify one "narrow fix" that could backfire (Jevons-type rebound or unintended consequence).
5. Where on Meadows' leverage point hierarchy would you intervene?

Reading reflection due before Week 2 session — submit via Canvas.
Key Takeaways — Week 1
  • Sustainability is a systems property, not a feature of individual components. Evaluating it requires understanding the system a technology inhabits.
  • Six of nine planetary boundaries are already exceeded — these are hard constraints, not aspirational targets. Technology design must operate within them.
  • Systems thinking reveals stocks (slow), flows (fast), feedback loops (behavior), and leverage points (where to act). Without it, interventions create new problems.
  • The most powerful leverage points are goals and paradigms — not just efficiency numbers. This course trains you to see both.
  • Sustainable technology design is the integration of environmental, social, and economic performance from the very first design decision — not a post-hoc audit.
  • This course gives you three quantitative tools: GHG accounting, DMRV, and process-level LCA — grounded in systems thinking so you know when to apply them and what they miss.
Next week: GHG Accounting — Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. The foundational measurement framework every sustainability professional needs to master.
CVEN 5019 · Principles for the Design of Sustainable Technologies · Carlo Salvinelli Week 1 — Sustainable Technology Design & Systems Thinking