SUSTAINABILITY
Taking a distinctive lead in defining the route to global sustainability
Professor Richard A. Williams CBE Principal and Vice-Chancellor
Across Heriot-Watt University, thousands of students and many staff have been undertaking the development of personal statements of purpose. This is not a gimmick or administrative exercise; each statement is a heartfelt expression, framing the area and way in which that individual would wish to make a personal impact.
My own engineering heritage means I feel an especial responsibility to assuring that society cannot only survive but thrive with time. For me, engineering is literally about bringing joy to life. So, my impact statement reflects my academic roots, leadership responsibility, and personal ambition: “I am an innovator and driver of change. My purpose is to bring enjoyment and security of life to others by creating a globally sustainable society”.
Professor Williams with Professor Maroto-Valer, Deputy Principal (Global Sustainability), launching Heriot-Watt's Global Environmental Sustainability.
At Heriot-Watt, we want to take a distinctive lead in defining the route to global sustainability.”
Professor Richard A. Williams
In recent times, in articles and conversations discussing our future development, the second most used word is ‘sustainability’, while the first most used is ‘artificial intelligence’. As a Principal and Vice-Chancellor of a university, I regard both as being of critical importance, and areas where we have a key role to play, since education and leadership of thought across them will literally be life changing. The fostering of ‘corporate purpose’ where organisations and corporations take up the mantle to drive change faster, supported by their communities or customers, is important. In many nations we are seeing how difficult it can be for governments to make ‘tough’ decisions to address climate change, and how the medium and long-term planning needed to project effective climate actions does not exist in many democratic government systems.
At Heriot-Watt, we want to take a distinctive lead in defining the route to global sustainability, acting as a lighthouse of best practise and a crucible of action. Here are five things that we are doing right now:
1. Our Ten Commitments
The foundation of the Heriot-Watt approach lies in our Global Environmental Sustainability, a key part of our current strategy, that is underpinned by ten specific commitments we have made to frame our actions. Led by our Deputy Principal of Global Sustainability, Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer, we have coherent, challenging and specific targets that mould our decision making. These cover the domains of leadership in action, thought leadership and foresighting, and across world leading research, teaching and enterprise. Find out more.
2. Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is about offering unique insights and starting conversations that matter. In her work in UK Industrial Decarbonisation, and recently as UK representative on key international activities at the UN and Mission Innovation, Professor Maroto-Valer is inspiring action and building knowledge. Our Chief Scientist, Professor Tadhg O’Donovan, is continuing the legacy from our large scale COP28 exhibitions and Future Skills Expo at the Dubai campus, as a leading figure in Green Technology and its deployment in Higher Education settings. Professor Adam Dixon, as the new chair holder in Sustainable Capitalism, is exploring new pathways for business to lead out in creating financial and social value. My own leadership priorities have been delivery of our institutional policy, dialogues with other higher education leaders, public press pieces, and very practical outreach in Zambia relating to emerging community projects in the technology of sustainable cooling in rural areas.
3. Driving Institutional Change
With our commitments in place, we have described the sort of community we want to be. Community is about learning, communicating, influencing and behaving differently. Then there is the issue of what sort of organisation we want to be. To address this, we have developed a Climate Action Framework that makes our principles clear regarding sustainable operations. For example, we want to challenge ourselves to not focus just on regulatory compliance in the countries where we operate, but to take on additional challenges, such as pathways to more sustainable procurement for example.
4. Our Research
This is focusing increasingly on mission-based challenge-led topics, hosted by our Global Research Institutes, that enable us to draw on our core knowledge in social sciences, business and technology to lead impactful change. Our latest Global Research Institute, iNetZ+ is developing new partnerships to secure the rapid transition we need. For example, we are linking with the University of Houston to accelerate energy systems transition, and with PETRONAS in Malaysia to jointly develop cost-effective technologies to produce hydrogen from biomass waste.
Read the Global Research Institutes feature article here
5. Educating Our Heriot-Watt Community
This year we are launching our Climate Advocacy Programme, a development programme to support our students, staff and alumni community. This, I feel, will be one of most potent activities to ensure we all have the information we need to make wise personal decisions and support others to do so. At the professional level too, we have been building a future-ready workforce that is climate-aware and equipped for the transition, including our lead of a Centre for Doctoral Training in Green Industrial Futures, to be based at Heriot-Watt, which will train students in the social, environmental, economic and regulatory aspects of the net zero transition.
Read more about the development of Centres for Doctoral Training here.
We need to work together to deliver a sustainable world and build flourishing communities for future generations. Our global alumni community is a key part of this. From you I would welcome your partnership, your enterprise, and your ideas for how we might best collaborate to secure the future we would all wish to see.
