Lent Term

This term is very busy. Throughout the week I have the following classes:

1. Discussion Seminar

2. Sustainable Energy
-The aim of this course is to examine the sustainable production and use of energy. In order to provide sensible answers to questions such as "where is our future energy going to come from"?" and "how best to use energy?" Engineers need to be able to analyse systems, energy flows and their environmental impacts. This requires tools already familiar to engineers, such as the laws of thermodynamics, but also necessitates a holistic approach, i.e. looking at the impacts of a product or system over its entire lifecycle.

3. Implementying Change Towards Sustainability
-The starting point for this module is that our human society and economy require significant change to move towards sustainability. It’s focus is on helping graduates to contribute to such change, whatever individual role they take. The module assumes that such a role is unlikely to be as a CEO, so its emphasis is particularly on assisting graduates to be effective in ‘bottom up’ individual action for change. It aims to engage with and support the individual’s own journey of inquiry and self-discovery of a role.
To provide the system context for change, it surveys in outline, and provides access to, a range of sustainability issues: the various ‘stakeholder’ roles; drivers for sustainability; and business responses, including ethical leadership, CSR and (sustainability) reporting practices; and also organisational change theory and practice.
Case study examples will be included, and sessions will also link to some of the guest lecturer Lent Term Seminar presentations on organisational change.

4. Tools, Techniques, and Assessment Frameworks
-This module focuses on the assessment of sustainable development in engineering practice.
In particular the focus is on the engineering design process and asks how this is geared to meeting real needs in industrial sectors such as construction, transportation, manufacturing and the chemical industries. The module deals with issues such as procurement, supply chain management, clean production and life cycle product design, minimising operational impacts and maintenance requirements and end of life decommissioning. Systems thinking is introduced and techniques such as life cycle analysis, problem structuring and multi-criteria decision making are discussed.
Some of the evaluative techniques and sustainability indicators which can be used to measure the progress that is being made, will be examined and critically appraised. This will include a consideration of tools and techniques including indicators and targets, Environmental Social Impact Assessment, Life Cycle Analysis, ecological footprinting and whole life costs. The subject of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) will also be introduced, to demonstrate how sustainability principles and assessment methodologies are being interpreted and applied to address global issues.

5. Distinguished Lecture Series
- The role of engineering in entering the ecological age (Peter Head)
- Sustainable Development - great green dream or impossible ambition? (Tony Juniper)
- Reducing the global burden of disease (Dr. Jamie Bartram)
- A sustainable technology strategy for engineers (Dr. Karel Muldur)
- Sustainability in the resources sector (Paul Skinner)
- Innovating to sustainability (Professor Charles Ainger)
- William McDonough author of Cradle to Cradle

6. Sustainable Assessment of Large Infrastructure Projects
-This course will explore the question "How do we balance economic, environmental and social dimensions in large-scale infrastructure project design, evaluation and decision making”. Currently, large-scale, long-lived infrastructure projects involving many economic, social and environmental aspects are evaluated using cost-benefit analysis, and similar economic instruments. These tools have been applied since the mid 20th century. In the 1970s environmental impact assessments were instituted as another dimension of engineering project assessment. Since the Brundtland Commission Report of 1987 and the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio, efforts have been made to come up with even broader multi-dimensional evaluative frameworks that address sustainability
Today there are a wealth of sustainable development evaluative frameworks, but traditional economic instruments typically dominate over environmental assessment tools with social assessments or sustainability assessments either limited in scope or non-existent. The module will explore economic, environmental and social evaluative frameworks as separate instruments, then consider and apply examples of frameworks that attempt to get at the "triple bottom line". Evaluative frameworks for the sustainable development of large infrastructure projects will be considered in the context of case studies, for example, the Liverpool Airport Expansion, the Panama Canal, the Orange County, California Groundwater Replenishment System and the Three Gorges Dam. The overall aim is to show how we might plan and evaluate large projects differently to achieve sustainable outcomes.

7. Management of Technology and Innovation Consultancy Project
-First-hand experience of the reality of innovation, project management and entrepreneurship. Students work with local companies and will apply analytical skills in a real-world context using some of tools and concepts from the taught component of MOTI. It provides opportunities to build a network of contacts with the Cambridge technology community. Students work in teams of 4-5 for the six weeks of the project, supervised by a faculty member or PhD student

This term my assignments are:
1. Personal Change Challenge - write-up of experience in attempting to introduce sustainability (I chose to write about the Churchill Crew Team)
2. Organizational Change Strategy - what I can do as a junior officer in the US Navy to make the organization more sustainable
3. Carbon Capture and Storage - feasibility regarding economic and regulatory issues
4. Sustainable Energy Test
5. Systems and Cognitive Mapping
6. Multi Criteria Decision Making
7. Sustainable Development Report for Cornwall
8. Essay on lessons from guest lectures
9. Group report - sustainability assessment of large infrastructure project
10. Consulatancy Project Report, Presentation, and Paper