Barriers and opportunities: The view from practice

The urgency created by climate emergency declarations and organisational commitments made at recent UN Climate Change Conferences of the Parties (COPs) mean we have to spend much less time on why we need to act differently and focus instead on the what and the how of actually doing it. Most large infrastructure organisations and their supply chains have set out commitments to sustainable development, aligned to the SDGs, the 2030 Climate Pledge or similar variations. These variously address the big challenges described in Chapter 1.

Societal behaviours, pressures and expectations are changing far more rapidly than in the past – for example, in the public's changing attitudes towards plastics and understanding of the likely links between extreme weather events and human-induced climate change. It follows that all engineering teams must fully understand the behaviours and policies their projects depend on, and build in the capability to modify future operations accordingly. How organisations operate may need to be redefined against such new pressures because the criteria by which successful projects are judged are also radically changing.