In November 2022, negotiators will gather in Sharm El-Sheikh to progress the state of play on the Paris Agreement – our global response to the climate crisis. In the lead up to this meeting, IChemE Fellow Mary Stewart, an observer to the processes of the UNFCCC, the global body with oversight of the Paris Agreement, outlines the main themes of the conference.
Continue reading COP27: From Ambition to ImplementationTag: Environment
GUEST BLOG: Water and climate change #COP26
In this blog, IChemE Fellow Martin Currie talks about how a systems approach and collaboration beyond the water treatment community has taken the water climate discussion to COP26.
Continue reading GUEST BLOG: Water and climate change #COP26
GUEST BLOG: From COP21 to COP26
In December 2015, IChemE Fellow Stefaan Simons attended COP21 in Paris. Six years later he is in Glasgow for COP26 and shares his experiences of attending the pivotal climate change conference, explaining the progress IChemE has made with respect to climate change during that time.
Continue reading GUEST BLOG: From COP21 to COP26
Malaysia Award winners creating sustainable solutions for our Earth – #ichemeawards #EarthDay
Across the globe today, scores of people will be marking Earth Day (22 April) under this year’s theme, Restore our Earth.
While there is so much more to be done to help tackle climate change and prevent further environmental disasters, it’s also important to recognise the achievements of those who are working on extremely important regeneration and restoration initiatives, as well as creating sustainable processes and educational programmes to enhance the life of our planet and all living things upon it.
So, we caught up with three of our winners from the IChemE Malaysia Awards 2020 to learn more about how their award-winning projects are helping to do this.
Continue reading Malaysia Award winners creating sustainable solutions for our Earth – #ichemeawards #EarthDay#EarthDay2018: Energy and resource efficiency is key to reducing environmental waste
Reaching a consensus on how to reduce the environmental impact of human activity is challenging, but the desire to bring about change is gathering momentum across the world, and especially in the chemical engineering community.
Today, along with many others across the globe, we’re celebrating Earth Day. The Earth Day Network leads this campaign on 22 April each year with their mission to diversify, educate and activate a worldwide environmental movement.
This year’s theme is to end plastic pollution. Poor consideration of resources through their entire lifecycle not only results in pollution (such as plastics in our rivers and oceans), but also has a wider impact on our planet. Continue reading #EarthDay2018: Energy and resource efficiency is key to reducing environmental waste
Was your commute today #poweredbycoffee?
A brilliant piece of news hit our desks this morning, and chemical engineering is at it’s heart. London-based start-up Bio-Bean have teamed up with Costa and Shell, to power London buses with bio-fuel derived from coffee waste.
Bio-Bean has a number of products in it’s growing portfolio, but it is it’s B20 biodiesel that has been hitting headlines, and powering London buses from today.
Guest Blog: Rhamnolipids promise a renewable revolution
Environmental impact is something that has become increasingly important for organisations and consumers in recent years. It is a topic discussed on a global scale by world leaders, and an issue of contention for many.
For some chemical engineers it has provided an opportunity for them to use their knowledge of chemical processes to create environmentally-friendly alternatives to the products we rely on daily.
In today’s blog Dr Dan Derr gives an insight into biosurfactants – which he hopes will spark a ‘renewable revolution’ in the fast-moving consumer goods industry.
Name:
Dr Daniel Derr
Current Position:
Project Leader, Internal Research & Development, Logos Technologies
Bio:
Dan gained his PhD from Colorado State University, and went on to study bio-based jet fuels and photocatalysis at General Electric’s Global Research.
Following this, he led an integrated BioRefinery effort called the Corn to Cellulosic Migration (CCM), focusing on the migration of billions of dollars of capital deployed in today’s corn ethanol industry toward cost-effective production of greener ethanol from corn stover, switchgrass and woodchips.
Now working for Logos Technologies, Derr is currently focused on NatSurFact® – a rhamnolipid-based line of biosurfactants.
Continue reading Guest Blog: Rhamnolipids promise a renewable revolution
Celebrating chemical engineering achievement in sustainability #ichemeawards
It’s time for another round -up of our IChemE Global Awards 2016 winners, and this time we’re focusing on sustainability.
In our modern world projects that deliver a sustainability benefit are usually successful. In fact, all our winners this year have demonstrated some kind of sustainable element in their work. Whether it’s taking on large projects, developing products for poor communities, or innovating to change lives.
But these winners have put sustainability at the heart of what they do. Pushing the limits to find the most environmentally-friendly way of doing things, some of them are also very young companies – and ones to watch in the future.
So please take a look at the following three winners videos, and as always thanks to Morgan Sindall for helping us to produce them.
Continue reading Celebrating chemical engineering achievement in sustainability #ichemeawards
IChemE Global Awards success stories that make you proud to be a chemical engineer
Recently we announced the finalists for the IChemE Global Awards 2016. The ceremony takes place on 3 November in Manchester, UK – and we can’t quite believe how quickly Awards season has come round again!
Each year our Awards judges have the tough task of narrowing down the hundreds of excellent entries to a select group of exceptional finalists for each category. We have seen some fantastic projects over the years, and 2015 was really special. 16 well-deserved winners were handed trophies at the Global Awards evening, which took place on 5 November 2015 in Birmingham, UK.
Read on to find out what some of our 2015 finalists have been up to since the ceremony, and re-cap some of the best moments of the night.
1. Ohio State University congratulated by President Obama
Bharat Bhushan and Philip Brown from Ohio State University, US were awarded the Water Management and Supply Award in 2015. To win the award they developed a special mesh which uses a unique coating and tiny holes to separate oil from water. The ground-breaking work, designed to help clean up oil spills, was even noticed by the President of US, Barack Obama, who sent the researchers a congratulatory note.
Continue reading IChemE Global Awards success stories that make you proud to be a chemical engineer
From Paris to London – IChemE Energy Centre speaks out at #COP21
We hope you have been following our series of #COP21 blog posts, focusing on the IChemE Energy Centre’s five priority topics for the COP21 climate talks.
As an agreement looks set to be on the horizon (fingers crossed!) the Energy Centre was involved in two events.
Both events asked the same question – Do you believe that the technical solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions already exist?
Find out what happened below.
Paris
Our official COP21 side event in Paris saw several leading thinkers – including our own Chair of the Energy Centre Stefaan Simons – deliver their thoughts on ‘Technology solutions for a two degree world’.
Continue reading From Paris to London – IChemE Energy Centre speaks out at #COP21
The future of nuclear power generation #COP21
Nuclear power is already playing a vital role in decarbonising the global energy economy. Its capacity to provide base load power makes it a stable and low-carbon energy supply.
Nuclear power provides approximately 11 per cent of the world’s energy. In the UK, nuclear power generation makes up 19 per cent of the energy landscape. The proportion is much higher in France, at 75 per cent.
However, there are still significant public concerns over the safety and environmental impacts of nuclear power, and the legacy issues of waste. These concerns mean there is often very little support for new nuclear power plants.
As we move to a low carbon future nuclear, new build will have to play an even bigger part in the energy strategies of many governments, because nuclear doesn’t emit carbon dioxide during power generation.
Continue reading The future of nuclear power generation #COP21
The threat of energy paralysis (Day 128)
There has been a great deal of reflection over the past few weeks about the Scottish Independence Referendum.
With 97 per cent of the electorate in Scotland registering to vote, and an eventual turnout of 85 per cent, it was a triumph for democracy and public engagement.
At the same time, it was a major wake-up call to many politicians who have rarely experienced the huge level of interest in their ‘day jobs’. In fact, arguably, many politicians were shown how to do their jobs better.
Some ‘leaders’ even tried to side-track the politicians, by building websites using independent assessments from leading experts around the world. Continue reading The threat of energy paralysis (Day 128)
Making cities sustainable (Day 61)
With the Commonwealth Games in full swing, and an estimated one million tickets sold for 250 medal events, Glasgow in the UK is the place to be this summer!
But with tens of thousands of expected visitors as well as the 4,500 athletes taking part, it is fair to assume that a lot of waste is going to be produced.
And then there’s the carbon emissions associated with spectator and participant travel to and from the games.
So, naturally, making these Commonwealth Games sustainable and environmentally friendly is an important part of the agenda.
IChemE 
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