Engineers must take action to reverse damage to planet, says IChemE climate briefing

ICHEME has urged its members to use their unique expertise to arrest and reverse the “damage to the life support systems of our planet” in its updated climate change briefing, released ahead of COP29.

Addressing its membership across government, academia, and industry, IChemE laid out several goals to help promote measures around greenhouse gas emissions and “combat, mitigate, reverse, and adapt to climate change”.

These commitments build on IChemE’s 2022 briefing in working closely with members and using expertise and systems thinking to support global goals.

The institution said in its statement: “The updated briefing explores what the institution and chemical and process engineers across the world can do locally and globally to deliver an equitable, safe, and sustainable future.”

It added: “We commit to the principles listed in this briefing, and to work collaboratively as members, through education, research and sustainable engineering practices, in contributing to the transition to a net zero carbon world by 2050.”

Major commitments

IChemE’s updated commitments focus on its relationship with its members and their employers, saying it is the best way to address the “urgent action” needed to tackle the climate crisis.

Internally, the institution says it commits to providing policy advice to the government on the expertise of chemical engineers and engaging with academia and business to provide support in how to lower their emissions.

For its members, IChemE is priortising knowledge exchange, saying that it hopes to encourage both members in contributing to continuing professional development (CPD) and companies to report on how they are improving their emission reduction strategies.

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Foundational principles

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) form the basis of the institution’s commitments, with IChemE looking to update its Code of Conduct to oblige professional members to act in accordance with the principles of sustainability.

This involves members agreeing not to have an adverse impact on the environment and doing what they can to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Other principles include IChemE’s support for the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 °C, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, which calls for global emissions to be reduced by 43% by 2030 to meet that temperature goal.

IChemE president Mark Apsey is attending the second week of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan to communicate IChemE’s commitments and the role chemical and process engineers will play in achieving net zero.