The future of the industry
New Civil Engineer’s Graduate and Apprentice Awards are designed to recognise and reward the most inspiring civil engineering graduates and apprentices. This year the awards have a real focus on climate change.
Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old girl from Sweden has drawn the world’s attention towards the issue. In the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ style, she called out a room of dignitaries, corporates and climate scientists at the COP Summit in Poland telling them: “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.” Her message is bold and clear; we adults are reluctant to speak the uncomfortable words even when we have clear evidence of having less than 12 years left (as per Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to turn things around on all aspects of our society and reduce CO2 emissions by 50%.
It’s high time we engineer a different world and do it fast. But what are we as civil engineers doing to address this urgency? Have we become too comfortable designing to a code for the ordinary conditions? We are looking for graduates and apprentices who are not just comfortable working to codes but, through your day-to-day role or engagement in industry initiatives, are seeking to ensure our industry gets a grip on climate change.
