Stepping Up to the Challenge

I’ll be travelling to COP28 next week alongside colleagues from across AtkinRéalis with a focus on how we can contribute towards a resilient and low carbon future.

Our sector will design and deliver the technical solutions that will pivot us at pace towards greater climate resilience, the decarbonisation of the built environment, and the low carbon energy transition – so engineering has a vital voice to be heard – yet, whatever the outcome of COP28 and its ‘Global Stock Take’, delivering this net zero transition and adapting to the realities of a changed climate is beyond the capabilities of any one industry.

These are the world’s most pressing problems: tackling them will require collaboration across industries, markets and borders. We all need to step up to that challenge and bring our collective strengths to the table to work together to solve them.

Engineers are innate problem solvers, it’s in our DNA! We want to do more than talk about these issues. We want to focus on getting it done.

And we are: we’re already tackling these complex issues, whether it’s a city-wide delivery plan for decarbonising public buildings or helping to accelerate new energy infrastructure to power the low carbon transition.

Think global, act local

To me, the question is the same for individual organisations as it is for national governments: how can we rapidly extrapolate the impact of these individual actions towards the collective benefit of a far greater community?

It’s something we’ve been considering at AtkinsRéalis for some time.

We know our teams learn from every project they work on and every creative solution they produce, whether it’s sustainable infrastructure design or developing technology to model climate scenarios or net zero roadmaps. One of the key things we’re focused on is taking this knowledge and building on it, so that each time we start from the best of what we have.

That includes creating the platforms that enable us to share best practice, embed innovation at scale and exchange deep technical expertise and future-focused insight across teams and regions. We’ve created the foundations to provide local teams with access to expertise and technology that will add value and deliver better outcomes for our clients. Through this ‘think global, act local’ approach, we’re strengthening our collective ability to share expertise and contribute to future solutions.

But collaboration within our organisation is not enough - the need for all industries to bring our collective strengths to the table to tackle these issues is the only way we can tackle the climate emergency.

These multi-faceted challenges can only be addressed at system level, and that requires input from governments, investors, public and private sector parties, as well as those communities who are impacted both by the issue and by the proposed solutions. It’s paramount that we forge new connections, share knowledge and retain that inherent desire to focus on getting things done: collaborating towards a common goal also means forming new partnerships with defined roles and outcomes.

Engineering a better future

Engineering a better future for our planet and its people means a commitment to sharing ideas and proposing solutions, working in partnership to turn plans into action and respond to the devastating impact that climate change is already having across the world.

While the success of COP28 will be judged by the commitments and agreements signed over the next fortnight, I think we need to gauge it by longer term measures too: the strength of partnerships made, the opportunities for collaboration identified and the expertise shared on stages and in conversations across the event.

Climate change knows no borders: it requires international collaboration to tackle the very local impacts it creates, and I’m proud that we’re stepping up to the challenge and building global capabilities to play our part in the mission.

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