Sustainability champion Clift honoured with George E Davis Medal
11th May 2017
The leading thinker on sustainability and industrial ecology, Professor Roland Clift CBE, has been confirmed as the latest recipient of IChemE’s George E Davis Medal. Clift will receive the medal following the 12th George E Davis Lecture at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London on Thursday 6 July.
Clift will use the lecture to assert that chemical engineering is more than just the branch of engineering that supports the process industries. Rather, it is a systematic way of approaching problems based on integrating fundamental scientific principles, quantitatively, and considering complete systems.
Chemical engineering thinking is particularly powerful when applied at the macroscopic scale, to tackle problems with economic, environmental and social dimensions, notably to the sustainability agenda and to the approach known as industrial ecology.
Drawing on personal experience amassed over a professional career spanning nearly fifty years, Clift will explore the idea that chemical engineers can offer a rational approach to the crucial question:
“How can we find ways to live within the constraints of our finite planet?”
The event may offer a final opportunity to hear the outspoken and sometimes controversial Clift on a UK platform given his impending retirement and relocation to Canada later in 2017.
IChemE Sustainability Special Interest Group Chair, Malcolm Wilkinson, said:
“Roland has been an outstanding champion for the principles and practicalities of sustainable development for more than 20 years. He has used his fundamental understanding of process systems to confront governments, corporations and professional engineers with the sustainability challenge that could compromise the wellbeing of future generations.
“He is a worthy recipient of our Institution’s highest award for individual achievement and we are looking forward to a powerful message when he signs off with IChemE in July.”
The lecture will take place in the Al Qasimi Lecture Theatre in Prince Philip House at 3 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1. Registration opens at 6pm and the lecture and medal presentation will be followed by a drinks reception concluding at 9pm.
The presentation will be followed by a performance of Adagio in G minor for String Quartet, a piece composed by the ever-versatile Clift himself in 1967.
A full house is anticipated and early booking is recommended by all those with an interest in sustainable development, industrial ecology or the application of chemical engineering solutions to environmental challenges.