From the daily headlines that we see today, on the issues of climate change, world poverty and food safety, it is without a doubt that global sustainability is starting to gain significant attention from the major media around the world. This sentimental reaction on the issues of sustainable development is the consequence of misalignment of the world’s global economy in relation to the expectations and needs of today’s communities i.e. community well-being. The rapid expansion of industrial activities and the traditional governmental policies which both focus more on the economic bottom line at the expense of environmental and social obligations are major catalysts for such misalignment. As a consequence of these mind-sets, irresponsible practices such as uncontrolled pollution and indiscriminate use of natural resources have occurred freely resulting in wide spread degradation of the environment. This has also caused the lack of social cohesion to occur due to the unfair distributions of wealth and benefits widening the gap between the rich and the poor. How can we resolve these issues? What needs to be done? Who should be responsible to resolve these issues? These are compelling questions that need to be answered. If one would to look back at the engineering profession of yesteryears, we would find that engineers have always played a pivotal role in our lives. They have provided us with many great inventions that have enhanced and improved our quality of life. In light of this, engineers need to take up the responsibility to resolve these global sustainability challenges to help protect the well-being of the present and future generations to come. This presentation deliberates on how engineers can take a leadership role in addressing these global issues on sustainability.

BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. Dr. Aidil has more than 20 years of corporate strategy and engineering experience. He is currently a corporate sustainability consultant and sits on several green-tech companies as an industrial advisor. Prior to this, he worked for 15 years at a large corporate GLC, where his last corporate position as Vice President, Head of Sustainability Excellence was to advise top management on corporate sustainability matters and business ventures in engineering innovation and green technology. Aidil read a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London and obtained a Doctorate in Engineering Science from University of Oxford. He also has a MBA in Finance from University Malaya and passed the CFA Level I examination. He is a certified Professional Engineer with BEM, a Charted Engineer with the UK Engineering Council, a Corporate Member of both IEM and IMechE and a Professional Technologist with MBOT. He is an Excomm and Council Member in IEM and the Chairman of IEM’s Mechanical Engineering Technical Division.