Passionate. Driven. Gifted. These traits have shaped the life of Margot Hutchins. She is passionate about her vision to create social equity through industry practices and is finding her niche in the newly formed Sustainable Futures Institute (SFI) at Michigan Tech. Hutchins is driven to work long hours and excel in both her studies and her cross-country running adventures. She recently completed the Whistlestop Marathon in Ashland, Wisconsin—a 26.2 mile run on an old railroad grade—in two hours and 57 minutes! And, Hutchins is particularly gifted in Engineering. Graduating from Michigan Tech with a BS in Mechanical Engineering, she knows how to speak the technical language and she wants to use this skill to address critical social issues.

Social Responsibility

Combining social issues and engineering is a daunting task; however, Hutchins is exploring this path through an individualized program within the SFI. Social responsibility in industry is an absolute necessity, as she explains, “Humans need to change their behaviors on many different levels if we are going to maintain the quality of life that we currently enjoy. There is a big push in industry toward social responsibility, and many companies are establishing corporate social responsibility statements. These statements often declare that companies value things like equity and education, but operationally, they struggle with determining how to promote improvement on social issues and measure their progress.”

With the multidisciplinary approach and support of the SFI, Hutchins is developing the tools, metrics, and underlying science to measure and improve the decisions and practices that affect social sustainability. She describes the purpose of this social equity tool for decision making: “Business leaders need tools and quantitative measures, and my work is ultimately focused on addressing these needs, and linking engineering and business decisions to social issues.”

Economists have developed techniques to determine how monetary flows cascade through an economy and impact the activity in various industry sectors. Environmental engineers built upon this idea to describe the effect of monetary flows on economy-wide resource consumption and pollution measures (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste). Hutchins continues, “Our idea is to use a similar approach to characterize the effect of monetary flows on social indicators such as education, health care availability, and poverty level. Scale is a challenge; we want the tool to be able to describe global behaviors and regional effects in the US. Many developing nations supply the industrialized world with raw materials, and we want to help companies make decisions about how they spend their money. Purchasing wisely is one way to bring about positive social change around the world.”

The mission of the SFI is to create and disseminate new tools, methods, knowledge, and technologies that promote and support societal sustainability principles. The vision of the Sustainable Futures IGERT Project is to develop an integrated scientific and social basis for decision-making on sustainability issues. IGERT is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Integrating Sustainability

Hutchins’ goals do not end here; she is also interested in integrating sustainability concepts into engineering curricula. She believes sustainability will become increasingly important in the 21st century. Since her long-term vision includes a career as a faculty member, Margot Hutchins will have abundant opportunities to apply her gifts and drive in the pursuit of her passion for sustainability.

The Sustainable Futures Institute