Engineers key to tackling climate change
Lecturer Fiona Cousins, PE, CIBSE, ARUP and LEED Fellow, used her speech to explain how building services specialists can collaborate with policy makers and the public to champion sustainability, while also using their expert knowledge to challenge people in other professions and politics over issues such as sustainability and efficiency.
Cousins, speaking last week at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, also argued that engineering professionals will have to commit themselves to push for the highest possible standards in sustainability and efficiency, claiming that there is “no room for just good enough” when tackling “the greatest challenge in a generation.”
”It is obvious to anyone that climate change is the greatest challenge facing this generation and the next, and we have never had more tools available to help us fight it. Anyone can come up with grand designs, but it takes an engineer to ensure that they work,” she said.
“As an engineer, you have all the knowledge necessary to save the world – what we need now is the confidence to be world leaders too. A good engineer is technically competent; a great engineer thinks how their role can benefit wider society. We need to know our stuff, do it well, and really inhabit our roles to make the world a better place.”
Nick Mead, President of CIBSE, added: “This year’s Annual Lecture was an inspirational shot in the arm for the industry, which reminds us of the potential we have as professionals if we only grasp the opportunity that is there before us. CIBSE members are some of the best in the world at what we do, and we have the collective knowledge between us to really make an impact, and even save the world.
“I would like to thank Fiona Cousins for her thought provoking and challenging talk and I hope that we can build on what she has said and challenge ourselves and others to champion the highest standards in everything we do.”
