As a profession, we work with facts, data and conduct detailed analysis to arrive at our solutions. But the environment we operate in today is made up of people who cry “Fake News” when the information presented does not suit their world view and rely on the Echo Chambers of social media to reinforce their often uninformed beliefs. This is compounded by Governments of many of the world’s countries who struggle to develop, let alone present, a vision for the future that brings their citizens together in a shared future.
This lack of leadership or direction has led many businesses to pursue their own social purpose, often embedding it into their culture. Companies that truly live and embrace social purpose find the benefits are numerous; staff work better and stay longer; customers gravitate towards them, finding alignment with their corporate values; profits are generated; and finally, a community is benefited and enriched, particularly those most in need.
UNESCO’s report of 2010 (Engineering; Issues, Challenges and Opportunities for Development) outlines the opportunities for engineering, perhaps more than other disciplines, to use Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a way of ensuring key global issues can be addressed. It highlights that the proven engineering skills of problem solving and creative solution development can be applied to future challenges.
Meanwhile, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) report of 2008 (updated in 2017), Grand Challenges for Engineering, identifies four key themes:
- Sustainability
- Health
- Security
- Joy of Living
The NAE report says that answers supporting improvements in all of these themes need engineers with our abilities to problem solve and then create solutions based on data and facts, and specifically where these solutions have been interrogated with a balanced view.
Some may say that our members, rather than our professional body, should pursue these goals. However, the NAE report also says we must join with others to pursue suitable solutions, not just with facts…but with debate and appreciation of positions. UNESCO report reinforces this view when it says as engineers we must work effectively in collaboration with our colleagues and other development-focused professionals and community leaders to implement sustainable solutions to challenges such as urban poverty.
So we should look to other professional bodies and associations, such as the AMA, ACOSS and the BCA to name a few, to work with to develop solutions for some of the society’s most challenging issues.
So if we consider the four key topics of the State of the Engineering Profession 2017 Report, and combine with some of our most vexing social issues, could we group them like this:
• Future Workforce
- Social purpose
- Diversity
- Immigration policy – 457 Visa, Refugees
• Energy
- Security
- Sustainability
- Climate change
• Infrastructure
- Social design and planning, including poverty issues
- Affordable housing
- Regional and remote issues
• Defence Industry
- Ethical business decisions
- Broader Security arrangements
As we look towards an uncertain future, can engineers take the lead, use of skills to address the broader societal issues that our governments are failing to confront and develop a world where the informed provide solutions rather than the uninformed and the bigoted?
Can we take the next step and use our State on the Engineering Profession 2017 as a foundation and shape a model for “Engineering a Better Australia by 2030”?