TY - JOUR
T1 - Industry-Informed Workshops to Develop Graduate Skill Sets in the Circular Economy Using Systems Thinking
AU - Summerton, Louise
AU - Clark, James H.
AU - Hurst, Glenn A.
AU - Ball, Peter D.
AU - Rylott, Elizabeth L.
AU - Carslaw, Nicola
AU - Creasey, Julia
AU - Murray, Jane
AU - Whitford, Jeffrey
AU - Dobson, Brian
AU - Sneddon, Helen F.
AU - Ross, Joe
AU - Metcalf, Pete
AU - McElroy, C. Robert
N1 - © 2019 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - Increasing demand for chemicals worldwide, depleting resources, consumer pressure, stricter legislation, and the rising cost of waste disposal are placing increasing pressure on chemical and related industries. For any organization to survive in the current arena of growing climate change laws and regulations, and increasing public influence, the issue of sustainability must be fundamental to the way it operates. A sustainable manufacturing approach will enable economic growth to be combined with environmental and social sustainability and will be realized via collaboration between a multidisciplinary community including chemists, biologists, engineers, environmental scientists, economists, experts in management, and policy makers. Hence, employees with new skills, knowledge, and experience are essential. To realize this approach, the design and development of a series of workshops encompassing systems thinking are presented here. After close consultation with industry, an annual program of interactive workshops has been designed for graduate students to go beyond examining the "greening" of chemical reactions, processes, and products, and instead embed a systems thinking approach to learning. The workshops provide a valuable insight into the issues surrounding sustainable manufacturing covering change management, commercialization, environmental impact, circular economy, legislation, and bioresources incorporating the conversion of waste into valuable products. The multidisciplinary course content incorporates industrial case studies, providing access to real business issues, and is delivered by experts from academic departments across campus and industry.
AB - Increasing demand for chemicals worldwide, depleting resources, consumer pressure, stricter legislation, and the rising cost of waste disposal are placing increasing pressure on chemical and related industries. For any organization to survive in the current arena of growing climate change laws and regulations, and increasing public influence, the issue of sustainability must be fundamental to the way it operates. A sustainable manufacturing approach will enable economic growth to be combined with environmental and social sustainability and will be realized via collaboration between a multidisciplinary community including chemists, biologists, engineers, environmental scientists, economists, experts in management, and policy makers. Hence, employees with new skills, knowledge, and experience are essential. To realize this approach, the design and development of a series of workshops encompassing systems thinking are presented here. After close consultation with industry, an annual program of interactive workshops has been designed for graduate students to go beyond examining the "greening" of chemical reactions, processes, and products, and instead embed a systems thinking approach to learning. The workshops provide a valuable insight into the issues surrounding sustainable manufacturing covering change management, commercialization, environmental impact, circular economy, legislation, and bioresources incorporating the conversion of waste into valuable products. The multidisciplinary course content incorporates industrial case studies, providing access to real business issues, and is delivered by experts from academic departments across campus and industry.
KW - Applications of Chemistry
KW - Graduate Education/Research
KW - Green Chemistry, Collaborative/Cooperative Learning
KW - Industrial Chemistry
KW - Inquiry-Based/Discovery Learning
KW - Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary
KW - Sustainability
KW - Systems Thinking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074684486&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00257
DO - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00257
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074684486
SN - 0021-9584
VL - 96
SP - 2959
EP - 2967
JO - JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
JF - JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
IS - 12
ER -