This was the rather puzzling sub-heading to the First Biennial Lecture on Sustainability at the University last night, given by Atkins' Director of Sustainability and former CEO, Keith Clarke. The actual title was: Sustainability and Climate Change.
What attracted me, however, was not the title, but the combination of the speaker – a senior engineer by anyone's standards – and the blurb. This went:
Revolutions, whether social, technological or economic are messy, frightening and have unpredictable consequences. The need to move from carbon intensive economic growth to low carbon economies quickly is the greatest revolution in our history. Engineering can watch, whinge or lead. It's time to lead. The world cannot afford you not to.
Yes, I thought. Spot on. Tell me more.
Though clearly aimed at the UG engineering students who thronged to the event, it attracted me because I know a little about how successful some universities have been at radically changing their approach to teaching the new generation of professional engineers, encouraged by the sort of forward-thinking companies that Atkins clearly is. I went expecting to hear stories from the front line; of problems and progress – constraints, challenges and their overcoming.
Not a bit of it. I really felt for the short-changed students, especially as they'd been promised "a treat" in an overly fulsome introduction. In a 50 minute talk, the first 40 were spent on climate change and sustainability in a rehearsal of the knowns and the known unknowns, and it was only then that we got to the engineering. At which point, the only things I thought worth writing down were:
Do comparators within boundaries
Talk to people from other disciplines
Great engineering comes from struggling with the question
Do it differently; be prepared to be wrong
What a missed opportunity – and I still don't understand the title.
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