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Please can you briefly explain your current role and expertise on this topic
Peter Ball (PB): Director of Engagement with the Management School to foster links between our staff in teaching and research with business and wider community. (Business here includes public sector and third sector).
Researcher actively working with business, particularly manufacturing, on collaborative research and development projects. The projects are either practice-based, in particular how we can develop and share environmentally low impact and sustainable practices. Or the projects are performance-based so examining productivity and resource productivity such as the use of modelling and simulation techniques and the use of digital twins to understand the impact of implementing new practices.
What has been your progress and/or biggest achievements when it comes to decarbonisation?
PB: Working with others to share best practice in the sustainable manufacturing area, both sharing direct with business or enabling businesses to share with one another.
What do you think is the number one challenge for organisations looking to reduce their emissions?
PB: Ambition. Organisations need to work faster and harder to reduce their impact. This is for reasons of resilience to mitigate against future impacts on the business (taxation, resource availability) but also acceptance of the legitimacy of the business in the eyes of investors, customers and general public.
There are some who say that decarbonisation is not a priority to them as the target is 2050, what would you say to them?
PB: You could ignore this. Impacts are not immediate. It is not your target, it’s national/global. Or you could take a view that the severity of the risk to the (financial) sustainability of the business are so high that failure to take action now is irresponsible and against the interests of stakeholders, especially investors.
What is your advice to organisations just starting their work towards a more sustainable process?
PB: Prioritise at board level. Establish bold leadership. Set ambition. Get support from outside the organisation (there is so much out there!). Copy others. Pilot ideas. Gain internal acceptance. Engage more and more staff. Accelerate. Look back at your lean journey and question whether you should have moved faster and harder and reaped the rewards quickly enough compared to competitors.
What breakthroughs in terms of technology do we need for a more sustainable industrial sector in the future?
PB: Easy: digital. Digital (Industry 4.0, Smart, etc) has so much to offer for measurement and control. But it has to be easy. Companies need to be able to adopt digital at low risk and quickly.
Why do you feel it is important for all engineers and professionals involved in manufacturing to be part of the conversation about preparing for net-zero?
Those businesses which accelerate along the journey will be more profitable long term. They will survive. Investors will not be reluctant. Customers will not be reluctant to trade. Engineers and professionals therefore have a professional duty to support the financial sustainability of their companies. They also have a moral duty to engage. And chartered engineers (CEng) must remember that it is what they signed up to.
The Institution's Decarbonisation In Industry seminar will take place on 24 June 2021.
This event will focus on the steps towards a more sustainable and competitive organisation including energy demand analysis and adapting processes to reduce energy use and increase efficiency, led by presentations from Rolls-Royce, HVM Catapult, InnocentDrinks, BMW UK and Climate Change Committee.
Gain insight into reducing energy demand in the most energy-intensive industries: cast stone and steel as well as considering alternative green energy supplies, such as hydrogen. Expert-led virtual break-out rooms will allow you to join the discussion and network with your peers.
To read the full programme and register your place, visit the event website.