London Communique

In considering sustainability as a framework for the chemical engineering profession, the London Communique was an ad hoc step in the right direction. The 1997 London Communique (Fig. 4) acknowledged the need for chemical engineers to minimise their adverse impact on the environment more so than to use the profession s... 

The London Communique, the efforts of IChemE through the Future Life report and the CRYSTAL Faraday Partnership, the commitment of AIChE to sustainability through the CWRT Industry Alliance, the efforts of individual companies such as Alcoa, are all positive steps but they may not be proactive enough. 

Practising chemical engineers must commit to the London Communique in order to retain their licence to operate. 

In 1997, the Institution of Chemical Engineers issued the London Communique, signed by 18 chemical engineering societies from around the world. The Communique designed this broader perspective for the chemical engineering profession... 

The London Communique, issued in 1997 and endorsed by 18 chemical engineering societies worldwide, explicitly adopted the Social Contract paradigm, for example (see Fig. 4, Chapter 4) ... 

The Silent Spring was a seminal book in the development of the environmental consciousness which is one of the threads leading to the concept of sustainable development espoused by the London and Melbourne communiques. Another seminal work, referred to by several speakers at the 6th World Congress, was The Limits to Growth — the first report of the Club of Rome. If we concentrate on the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the predichons in the book we miss its principal message that exponential growth in use of resources and environmental emissions is unsustainable. 

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