| June 5th 2024 |
Welcome to the news from GATE for June 2024.
As we continue to make strides in our quest to promote a downshift from fossil fuel use to more sustainable means, the last quarter of 2023 and the first half of 2024 has been a busy time for GATE.
The biggest news for us in 2024 is GATE becoming the first Associate Body of the Society for the Environment. This allows GATE the added opportunity to create a pathway for our full Members to become a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv).
Looking back to October last year we held the GATE Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Convergence conference. Both were well attended with the latter sparking some lively debate.
We also welcome new Trustees and congratulate an award winner!
Read more about these developments and how you can get involved below.
Professional Recognition: GATE becomes first Associate Body of the Society for the Environment
GATE confirms an additional agreement to offer Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) registration to its members.
The Society for the Environment has welcomed GATE as their first Associate Body – a new collaborative opportunity for not-for-profit organisations, trade associations, professional bodies, and learned societies. This milestone partnership nicely coincides with GATE’s 10 year anniversary and the Society’s 20 year anniversary – an extra cause for celebration!
As an Associate Body, GATE has taken the added opportunity to form a registration agreement to create a pathway for our members to become a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) – a globally recognised indicator for environmental professionalism and expertise.
To make the CEnv opportunity a reality, a partnership has been established between GATE and the Society of Operations Engineers (SOE) who currently have over 300 CEnv members. This registration agreement confirms that SOE will lead on the CEnv registration process for GATE. As a result, eligible GATE Members (MGATE) will now be able to apply for CEnv registration, with the first successful members expected before the end of 2024.
Daniel Kenning - Co-founder and Chairperson for GATE
Dr. Emma Wilcox - Chief Executive of the Society for the Environment
Co-founder and Chair of Trustees of GATE, Daniel Kenning CEnv, confirmed the importance for GATE and their members:
“This is a major step in the support for professionals to deliver change-led technology to enable real sustainability. GATE is providing our members with the tools to enable their clients and employers to continue to meet needs and deliver success in a changing future operating environment. The ability to award CEnv is part of our current effort to also secure the ability to award CEng to members of GATE”.
Dr Emma Wilcox CEnv, Chief Executive of the Society for the Environment, said:
“We are delighted to welcome GATE into the SocEnv family as our very first Associate Body. Every sector and discipline will play a key role in solving the climate, environmental and biodiversity emergencies – including Transition Engineers and their networks. Alongside GATE, I look forward to collaborating with many more organisations in the near future to create faster, more widespread change.”
Full details of the Associate Body opportunity with the Society for the Environment and how to become a CEnv member through GATE will be released in September on the GATE website.
Convergence 2023AGM and Convergence conference 2023
The convergence of different ideas, groups, or societies is the process by which they stop being different and become more similar.
Making the unsustainable more sustainable requires convergence.
The GATE Convergence conference took place on 18th October 2023 after the Annual General Meeting. The event brought together presenters and participants from around the world to discuss a wide range of transition engineering topics.
We call this a “convergence” because it is more than a sharing of ideas. It is an opportunity to impart experiences, a linking of similarities and chance to debate opinions.
The event, held online, was divided into two runs to capture evening audiences in New Zealand and morning audiences in the UK.
Both runs were opened by the GATE Co-Founder and Chair of Trustees Daniel Kenning who welcomed all participants and elaborated the vision of GATE. The transition engineering topics presented included agricultural topics such as Fixing Agriculture and GHG mitigation in New Zealand Dairy Agriculture. The energy topics were Energy Transition in Zambia; Oil Downshift Transition Lab; School to Net Zero Transition Lab; Net Zero Electricity with no Energy Poverty. The other topics were Insight for Convergence and Mapping the Carbon Foot Print of Heavy Freight Movements within New Zealand.
All presentations delivered at Convergence 2023 were pre-recorded and are available to watch via the link below. To see more Transition Engineering content visit our YouTube channel.
GATE AGM: Appointment of Trustees
During the Annual General Meeting, GATE members voted for the appointment of new and the re-election of existing Trustees.
Dave Waters, Florian Ahrens and Luyando Mbozi were duly elected as Trustees for their first terms. Florian and Luyando who were already serving as Trustees were previously co-opted as Trustees before their election.
Susan Krumdieck and Mat Colmer were both re-elected for their 3rd terms.
The election and re-election of Trustees was welcomed by the Board of Trustees.
Learn more about the GATE Trustees here.
Resources
Year of Science Symposium - University of East London
On 4th March GATE introduced Transition Engineering to the University of East London Year of Science Symposium, “Engineering a Greener Future”.
We introduced Transition Engineering to the assembled students, lecturers and professors, explaining that it’s a new discipline and set of thinking tools that enables organisations to adapt the engineered systems on which they depend to secure the capacity to continue within immutable future constraints. It also enables innovators to design the right innovations that answer the right questions.
The event culminated in a student poster competition for engineering projects, and GATE was invited to return to the University of East London to share the experience of using Transition Engineering thinking tools with undergraduates in a workshop exercise.
For more detail on the UEL Year of Science click on the image to the left.
Webinar: Never Mind the Greenwash, Here’s the Transition:
How Engineers can Overcome Greenwashing to Deliver Real Change Towards Sustainability
Daniel and Ian are both former Chairs of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Energy Environment and Sustainability Group (EESG). They are ideally placed to tell you how to recognise greenwash,
Click here to read more about greenwashing and to watch the webinar click on the image to the right.
Member news
We are delighted to learn that our GATE Member Alison McMillan MGATE was a joint winner of the Women’s Award for Outstanding Women in STEM 2023 for the West Midlands region.
Prof McMillan works at Wrexham Glyndwr University as Professor in Aersopace Technology. She leads the CoMManDO Research Centre, and organises various conferences, seminars, and other events. She supervises PhD students and from time to time she gives workshops as part of the programme of the postgraduate research activity of the university.
Recently, Professor McMillan has been leading a project called ‘The Relief of Our Planet’ (TROOP), which is examining narratives around climate change and actions to mitigate it. The project comprised a series of webinars hosted by the IOP, and is now in the final phase of completing a book. This is aligned to the new discipline of Transition Engineering – developing, planning and designing infrastructure to enable the transition of a whole population to move comfortably to a lower carbon sustainable mode of living.
The next round of nominations for the East and West Midlands' Women's Awards is currently open, and this includes nominations for a range of professional areas.
Congratulations to Professor Alison McMillan MGATE for this achievement.
That's everything for our June update.
We are always interested in what you have been doing to promote and apply Transition Engineering. If you have any news that you would like us to consider for publication in a future Newsletter, please send an email with the subject “for newsletter” to info@transitionengineering.org and we may be able to feature it in future updates.
The Global Association for Transition Engineering (GATE) is a UK Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) and a Registered Charity No.1166048
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