Technocrats Taking On Sustainability

Posted August 23, 2006 in News

Subscribing to news bulletins can bring up the quirkiest of articles. For example an excellent article from Engineer Live where Dr Robin Batterham considers how chemical engineering has developed as a discipline, and postulates how it will need to operate to meet the major challenges on the path to sustainability.

Dr Batterham talks about the industry needing to be able to cope with ambiguity, developing scenarios and being able to simultaneously pursue seemingly contradictory paths, being able to participate and make innovate contributions towards emergent outcomes in networks (it is acknowledged that there will be more interdisciplinary systems). Thus it is envisaged there will be more creativity and co-operation, and leadership will become more shared or stewardship style rather than the traditional dominating overlord kind.

At one point Dr Batterham uses the term "post industrial social environment". The idea of social economies and interdependency is starting to be accepted at least in some technocratic milieus; which bodes well for being able to develop practical models that can take humanity into a renewed future.

In conclusion, Dr Batterham has given a good summary of the existing strengths of the chemical engineering sector and an excellent analysis of what might need to change for the industry to rise to the demands of the future. This is an excellent template that specialists from other industries and disciplines might want to contemplate applying to their own area.

Source: Engineer Live

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