David Greene
ES&P/MA ’05

David Greene is a sustainability engineer with the Austin (Texas) Water Utility. He is currently initiating a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory for the utility as part of the City of Austin's recently adopted goal of having all municipal operations being carbon-neutral by 2020. Not so coincidentally, his current professional work directly relates to his ES&P master’s thesis in which he compared GHG emissions for conventional and waterless sanitation practices. David writes, “While the GHG emissions inventory is my first task, I hope in time to use the wide latitude in my job description to take on other emerging issues such as residential greywater reuse, sludge treatment and reuse, and possibly even piloting a waterless sanitation project.”

This past spring, David co-taught a student-initiated course at the University of Texas, Austin on international (and sustainable) community development. Most of the 15 students were undergraduate engineers, but rather than taking them on a typical 'service' project, they were introduced to issues of power, poverty, participation; all within a popular education-inspired framework. About the project, David writes, “We took the group over Spring Break to a Mexican indigenous community near Taxco where they learned about both the community and the NGO Caminamos Juntos, whose 15 years of work there have resulted in authentic improvements in sanitation, economy, and health.”

David is also trying his hand at leading his neighborhood association, learning about planning and zoning while fostering other neighbor's community-building initiatives like hosting film nights and pot lucks, tree plantings and resource exchanges.

"We're an urban neighborhood with over 1000 households. After a recent meeting I called to start a conversation about homelessness, one neighbor asked me where, with my engineering background, I had learned to be an organizer, too. I realized that I'm working on Development, Community, and Environment issues... In short, I've inadvertently done my best to mirror the structure of IDCE - just missing GIS!"