Sustainability and Climate Change
Published: Tue 19 Oct 2021
We know that climate change is an immediate and serious threat to our planet. The Paris Agreement of 2015 states that greenhouse gas emissions must be kept to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid irreversible catastrophic outcomes for future generations.
We also know that engineers play a major role in solving climate change challenges. The IET is focusing on sustainability and climate change to help the engineering profession to find these solutions, and gain the skills and knowledge needed to implement them.
Our ambition is to accelerate the pace of development and adoption of technology that supports the move to a zero-carbon future.
How are we doing this?
We are engaged in a range of activities and projects to better understand industry needs and drive the changes needed. These include:
COP26
Having been granted Observer Status at the global climate conference in Glasgow in November, we will represent the voice of the engineering community in all of our related activities.
At the time of writing, this includes partnering with National Grid for their Global Youth Engineering Climate Change Conference held in September. We are constantly seeking opportunities to promote the work of our members and volunteers in relation to the themes of the COP.
Incoming IET Young Professionals Committee (YPC) Chair, James Mitchell MIET, says of the National Grid conference: ”Climate change is an unprecedented societal challenge. It’s a global issue requiring collaboration across industry, government, and academia where engineers play a crucial role through innovation and problem-solving.
“Young professionals will inherit a number of climate challenges to solve. They will be required to respond to climate change by adapting to meet the changing climate as well as mitigation of climate change through a reduction of our carbon footprint.
“To meet these challenges, young professionals will require broad skills sets including a depth of technical knowledge and a breadth of leadership, communication, and collaboration skills.
“The YPC’s mission is to inspire, inform and influence the global community of young professionals, supporting and promoting technology innovation to meet the needs of society. We do this by providing professional development and knowledge sharing opportunities to develop young professionals to make an impact on these societal challenges such as climate change.”
Working with our partners
Our partnership insight weeks have provided a wealth of information about the challenges faced by engineers in sustainability roles today. These include the move to hydrogen for net-zero heating and transport solutions and the challenge of balancing client cost requirements with implementing sustainable solutions for buildings, both new and for retrofit projects.
Asking industry
Our Green Skills for Net Zero and a Green Recovery Survey asked 1,010 senior decision-makers in engineering business what challenges they faced in meeting company sustainability goals.
We learned that almost half of those surveyed have difficulties finding the skills needed by their engineers through recruitment and training – a challenge that the IET can help with.
We also conducted a Green Preferences Survey to find out more about the general population’s views, attitudes, and understanding of their impact on climate change, what steps they currently take and intend to in the future to make a difference.
The adoption of new, ‘greener’ technologies will be key for the public, and it is engineers who will create and adapt the technologies available to make them reliable, affordable, and appealing to the public at large.