Version 3.1 of the Environmental Design Guide for Engineers (EDGE) is a software tool designed to help engineers and designers incorporate sustainability measures into the design of facilities to reduce life-cycle costs and increase materials and energy efficiency. In addition, the software can be applied to processes and procedures. EDGE is a project-related software tool that provides more than 250 opportunities to incorporate sustainable design into projects. Each opportunity is supported by examples, pictures, and references to help you evaluate the applicability and potential benefits to your project. Built-in filters narrow the focus to only the opportunities that apply, based on project size and design stage.

EDGE displays a qualitative matrix to compare the opportunities based on implementation difficulty and potential cost savings. The program indicates which stage of the project will realize pollution prevention benefits (engineering/procurement, construction, startup, normal operations, off-normal operations, or decommissioning) and who will benefit (the project, the site, the region, or global). If a technology is recommended, EDGE shows if that technology is currently available off the shelf or is still in development.

For those unfamiliar with sustainable design, an orientation module in the program explains the basic concepts of sustainability and how the software can be used to support design projects. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, you may also want to consider requesting sustainable design training.

EDGE software and the user's guide is available here for download as a compressed ZIP file (9.57MB). Save the ZIP folder to your hard drive. To install the software, extract the ZIP files to a folder on your hard drive.  From that folder, double-click the SETUP.EXE file to start the process. The files will be installed in "C:\Program Files\EDGE" unless you specify another folder.