How can engineers speed up production while reducing harm to the environment?

We asked Professional Engineering how engineers can speed up production while maintaining quality and reducing harm to the environment. We need to look at optimisation, rather than doing things faster. Faster isn’t always the best solution. When driving, you increase speed, burn more fuel, put out more pollutants, QED impact the environment. So, logic dictates that we need to look at optimising to reduce the impacts overall. Not good news for those looking to reduce costs, but if we want to reduce harm to the environment we need to invest more. You forgot to add at no additional cost. This is the problem engineers face daily. Every industry strives to achieve this end goal in a different way – there is no simple answer.