2024 Conference on Sustainability in Engineering, by Daniel J. Cabral

Over this past reading week, Dalhousie sent a delegation of seven engineering students to the 2024 Conference on Sustainability in Engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). As a second-year mechanical engineering student passionate about the environment and the renewable energy transition, I was excited at the prospect of meeting other like-minded individuals from across Canada and hearing from leading industry experts.

Over four days our delegation attended sessions ranging in topics from hydrogen fuel cells to sustainable concrete, and everything in-between. The theme of this year’s conference centered on the concept of the ‘Essential Engineer’ which emphasized the pivotal role engineers play in society and that technology alone cannot solve our current world problems. This idea was explored in our very first session entitled “Sustainability Beyond Engineering” where Dr. Seth Dworkin and others highlighted the importance of tomorrow’s engineers having an increasingly diverse skill set. As we learn to work with AI in the coming decades, future engineers will have to lean more on their communication and empathy skills than ever before.

These skills will be essential in solving the climate crisis, as the problem at its core is no longer a technological one, but rather one of behavioral change. How many times have we as engineers fallen into the trap of being drawn to the shiny new technological toy while missing the forest for the trees? Undoubtably, the hardest things to change are the daily habits that have been engrained in us as a society without a second thought. That is why as ‘essential engineers’ need to think critically about the impact of the totality of our actions and have the awareness to advocate for what is best for all of society, not just a sub-segment of privileged few in the short term.