Climate change and biodiversity loss are the greatest challenges of our time. For our generations to have any hope of contributing to the fight against these challenges, we must adopt sustainability as the key objective in all of our work moving forward. We believe that global cooperation and inclusivity are key requirements to achieving modern, sustainable solutions. Current practice needs to evolve to encompass all these factors now.
Our team has held meetings to discuss each individual’s background, experience, and what they wish to see for the future. One item that popped up several times was the sharing of knowledge between people, and how status, hierarchy, perceptions, and limited networks impeded the sharing of knowledge on a significant scale.
Our proposal is to create a global, multidisciplinary, collaborative platform, where people can share their sustainable solutions stories. These people could be anyone from industry experts to recent graduates who have identified a more sustainable way of working. We would hope to include anecdotes from people of all backgrounds, identifying precedents that can be used to push forward sustainable design practices that might otherwise not have been known about, to every country in the world. The title of “Champion” could be allocated to contributors, to incentivise knowledge sharing in a world where companies tend to hold onto their secrets in order to maximise their own gains. This “Champion” concept has been adapted from the Institute of Civil Engineers Carbon Champion initiative, and we would hope to work collaboratively with such prestigious institutions such as the ICE, Royal Academy of Engineering, and Engineers Without Borders, in order to lend credibility and legitimacy to the content.
We, as the Engineering community, have a responsibility to affect change, and it is key that we share knowledge as widely as possible to achieve this change.
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks very much for your thought-provoking and in-depth comments, it has been good to explore the ideas from many angles and pool our experiences.
We've had two new members join the team, so we are now five ladies working together, which is great!
We had a meeting this afternoon and have some further ideas, and we're wondering if you might be available to join us for our next meeting tomorrow (Saturday) morning from 9am - 10:30am please? (on MS Teams, if that works for you too?)
Apologies that it's over the weekend, but we're all on a short timeline to produce this video by Monday's 12pm GMT deadline!
Many thanks
Lara
Hi Harriet,
Thanks for the concept note. I've been assigned to your team as a mentor. I love the idea around sharing sustainable solutions and feel more of it has to happen. I'm a structural engineer and a passive house designer so we are always looking for solutions that incorporate best practices.
I would love to know who everyone is and their area of expertise/study. So please don't be shy with everyone contributing. I have a few thoughts which I would like you as a group to discuss further:
Let's dial back a step and identify what the solution you are proposing is. Who, What, Why, When and How? There is a collaborative platform (which I think is great) and a champion concept. This will help steer the discussion around purpose and you will be able to focus on the key elements of the solution.
The champion concept becomes less inclusive as it tends to be industry specific hence why there are three engineering bodies there. What about say the architects, project managers, manufacturers etc. How are we going to truly incorporate inclusive design. Is sustainability just an engineering concept? Lets apply it to our buildings, our infrastructure and our cities.
Who identifies these sustainable approaches and what is the criteria drawn up to identify a more sustainable way of working? Great as an a concept but becomes increasing complex to implement. In the framework of globally responsible engineering, sustainability can be very subjective and must be relevant in its local application.
How would the solution benefit society? How does it contribute regeneration? Is there a feedback loop? How would your solution know it is successful?
It would be good to really flesh out the solution. How will it pay for itself? There are currently some large sustainable platforms such as the UK Green Building Council, https://www.ukgbc.org/. Will it be through membership, through courses and events, through certifications such as the "champion" accreditation?
Would it be global or local? How would you get other countries to follow to buy-in? What would the benefits of joining this platform besides getting updates on best practice? What would be the incentive for prestigious organisations to join in?
I hope this is a starting point for some of the areas that we could work on in the brief. As a design challenge it's important to include a level of detail about the proposed solution so it's worth a think about it.
I'm happy to discuss here or on a video call if required. Please feel free to challenge any of the points. Looking forward to hearing from you.