Uniting for common sustainable goal
Fortunately, such undertakings are already in place around the world and will hopefully bring about new ideas to combat environmental problems.
One such event is the World Congress on Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering that will take place at the end of this month in Prague, Czech Republic.
Authors, researchers, scholars and industrial experts from around the world will come together at the congress to participate and discuss important issues in separate conferences focusing on geotechnical research and engineering, environmental sustainability, development and protection, and air, water, soil pollution and treatment.
Quoting the words of Mahatma Gandhi, Assoc Prof Bachmann says, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
If the world is to take sustainability and ecological problems seriously, there needs to be a unified effort to re- examine the way we lead our daily lives.
Both sustainability and development are important in today’s world but the focus is to find the balance between competing needs such as technological and economical needs, the need to protect the environment as well as the need for additional efforts, including significant changes in lifestyles, human behaviour and consumption patterns.
Dr Yap says, “History has shown many examples of adverse health impacts arising from technological advancement but the challenges of sustainable living lie on the fine line of balancing the array of interests and adopting the sustainable development that encourage technological advancement, economic growth, environment protection and public health.”
With 2020 being only four years away, the entire issue of sustainability will likely take a back seat to national development over the coming years.
However, events held in Kuala Lumpur such as the International Conference on Civil, Environmental and Structural Engineering last month and the Fifth International Conference on Advances in Applied Science and Environmental Engineering that took place last weekend is a good start for local engineers to introduce research and developmental activities, which will inspire civil and environmental engineering graduates who will lead the charge for national environmental reforms in the near future.
This, plus continuous media exposure of environmental issues, are the first crucial steps to educate the broader public on the importance of initiating green lifestyle changes and demanding more stringent environmental policies, which current environmental technologies can realise.