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[January 2008]  My vision for my time as Chairman of EESG is at three different levels:

• A global vision for the role of engineering in the world
• A vision for the role of EESG within the IMechE
• A vision for the role of IMechE members in the work of EESG

1) Global Engineering Vision

I see that society is moving from one era into another and that engineers can enable a planned transition instead of a much more painful unplanned transition, and we will also need to respond to unplanned elements of the transition.

Two well-known images inform my vision of where engineering can take us to: the graph of the growth and required reduction in carbon emissions of the “Contraction and Convergence” framework, and that for the growth and imminent decline in fossil energy production of the “Peak Oil” model.

In each case there is a need for radical, epic scale change from an upward trend to a downward trend, and within this change lie the challenges that engineering can solve; there will be challenges in changing the world around us (“improving the world through engineering”) and challenges in adapting to changes over which we have no control. We can’t choose to not go into the future, and we can’t choose a future that is like the past, but we can work to make the future as good as it can be.

The recent past has been characterised by the industrial revolution and cheap energy; the role of engineers has included a lot of new and amazing developments that use the easily available energy to do great things. Now we’re entering an era when energy will be scarce and expensive, and we will need to focus on doing enough; we need to move from the way of thinking that says “more with more” to “enough with less”.

Engineers, especially mechanical engineers, have been involved intimately with the development of machines; with mechanisms that use energy inputs to deliver desirable results. Indeed our preoccupation with machinery and with applying machinery to create wealth for our employers may be an intellectual barrier to the longer term goal of delivering a sustainable society. 

I believe that there is a key difference between the professional institutions, whose members are individual engineers, and the trade associations, whose members are the employers of engineers. I believe that the challenges of sustainability can only properly be addressed with thinking that is free from vested interests of corporations.

I also believe that the word “engineer” actually implies “an ingenious person” rather than “a person who understands engines”, and that the individual members of IMechE need to behave more like the creative and imaginative geniuses than people who understand engines.

Our ingenuity will be called on more, if not less, as we seek technical and non-technical mechanisms for delivering sustainability within a changing landscape of assumptions and constraints:

“The 21st Century is beginning, it is time to throw off our chains and unleash the power of our imagination and creativity; we should be as unlike machines as possible”.

These issues are widely debated but technically competent people are not included enough in the debate – I see that engineers need to reclaim a role and positioning the decision making machinery of state and industry and the city – to reclaim this we need to show clarity of vision. Professional engineers need also to behave separately from the vested interested of their employers.

The challenges are so huge, and the assumptions on which we make decisions so different from anything our predecessors have known, that we may develop a completely new field – “sustainable engineering”.

Einstein said: “A problem cannot be solved using the same way of thinking that caused the problem in the first place”; here we are, having thought that these ways of thinking will continue to serve us well: “more, newer, faster, bigger” and “energy is cheap and plentiful forever” and “economic growth can continue forever”.

We need to get engineering into the debate by policymakers and other key movers and shakers in the business of building the society of the future: we need to work out what, with new constraints, is possible and what is not. We cannot let non-engineers continue in the blind faith that engineers can stay in the back room and will come up with a technical panacea when one is needed: there is no technical panacea.

The following is a quote from a book review about maths, but it applies equally to engineering:

“To create a new field, you have to feel comfortable with paradox, with creative tension, with sloppy and dangerous new ideas, and you have to want to rock the boat, not to conform slavishly”

2) A vision for Sustainability within IMechE and EESG

EESG is at the intellectual centre of the four IMechE themes: Education, Energy, Environment and Transport. See the challenges of our work as a learned society in terms of learning:

• Inward learning
  • Identifying which questions need answering, which learning we need to bring into the domain for engineers.
• Outward learning
  • To identify which learning engineers need to impart to our peers – to government, to industry, to society
• Shared learning
  • To identify with which other organisations we should be collaborating on these learning objectives – ways of working, learning and learned organisation.

 Through the IMechE I see a big opportunity to build relationships with key organisations such as the city, the Treasury, the Bank of England, with government departments, with NGOs working on sustainability. There is a huge movement of highly talented and motivated people out there, but we must believe in our ability to make their endeavours more effective by adding technical capability to the mix. We, as an engineering body, could also benefit from working more closely with non-engineers.

3) For IMechE members – challenges, ways of working.

We have started to prioritise the actions that need to be taken to realise this vision.

My main vision for members is to resolve, over time, a shared vision for what sustainability means to engineers, behind which we can develop some shared endeavours. Also for members is that the work of EESG enables members to better implement sustainability in whichever field or organisation they work.

I aim to make it a valuable experience contributing to EESG as a volunteer, so that members are enthusiastic about being part of the group, and about giving time and energy to the group.

I aim to identify challenges that IMechE members can pick up and work on, for their own benefit and that of society.

I aim to make the group an exciting and worthwhile arena in which IMechE staff are keen and happy to be involved, so that they are happy to work with us even if we push the envelope on what the institution can do.

I aim to find a way of bridging the gap between the 25-20 people who form the “Board” of EESG, and the 10,000 members who have ticked the box that says ”I’m interested in sustainability”. I assume that the other 70,000 members did not sign only because it’s obvious that everyone is interested. However, I do think that there is scope for intermediate endeavours involving members that takes more commitment that ticking the box, but less than pitching up at the board meetings. For this, I look forward to hearing from members who read this newsletter.

Daniel Kenning EESG Chairman

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