Do we need sustainability as a new approach in human factors and ergonomics?

Abstract

The International Ergonomics Association Technical Committee ‘Human Factors and Sustainable Development’ was established to contribute to a broad discourse about opportunities and risks resulting from current societal ‘mega-trends’ and their impacts on the interactions among humans and other elements of a system, e.g. in work systems. This paper focuses on the underlying key issues: how do the sustainability paradigm and human factors/ergonomics interplay and interact, and is sustainability necessary as a new approach for our discipline? Based on a discussion of the sustainability concept, some general principles for designing new and enhancing existent approaches of human factors and ergonomics regarding their orientation towards sustainability are proposed.

Practitioner summary: The increasing profile of sustainability on the international stage presents new opportunities for human factors/ergonomics. Positioning of the sustainability paradigm within human factors/ergonomics is discussed. Approaches to incorporating sustainability in the design of work systems are considered.

Keywords:

• ergonomics
• human factors
• sustainable development
• sustainability
• sustainable work systems

Notes

^1. [email protected].

^2. Although the notions of ‘corporate sustainability’ (CS) and ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) show different development paths, they are often used synonymously in the current debate and/or are not distinguished from each other in a consistent manner (see e.g. van Marrewijk 2003). The same is true regarding the overall relationship between CSR, CS and sustainable development (see e.g. Curbach 2009). In this paper, CSR and CS shall both be seen as concepts which foster the implementation of adequate management approaches, methods and instruments at corporate level in order to optimise the sustainability performance (i.e. contribution to sustainable development) of a corporation's business operations.

^3. www.betterwork.org and www.betterfactories.org.

^4. In general, sustainable development is widely recognised by experts as a three-pillar concept since the 1990s (cf. UNCED 1992; Elkington 1997). However, the widespread use of ‘green’ as a buzzword in the context of sustainability (‘Green IT’, ‘Green Economy’, ‘Green Society’) may lead to a rather environmentally oriented interpretation in the public. The labelling of the Rio+20 Summit with the headline ‘Green Economy’ can be seen as a symptom for this matter (cf. UN 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Klaus Fischer

1 1. [email protected].