Julian Allwood: Sustainable Materials With Both Eyes Open
December 2012 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global greenhouse gas reductions of 50–85 per cent will be needed by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change, representing a radical shift away from today’s fossil-fuel-derived economy. This begs the question: is such a reduction achievable, and if so, how? This is one of the key challenges tackled through the research of Dr Julian Allwood and his Low Carbon Materials Processing Group (LCMPG) at the University of Cambridge.
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Dr Julian Allwood, Reader in Engineering at the University of Cambridge and a frequent contributor to Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s sustainability training programmes, is convinced that energy efficiencies in production will not be enough to reach the UK’s carbon emissions targets. Instead, he explains that we need a new approach to material efficiency – ‘Sustainable materials, with both eyes open’ – as well as a new vision of product lifecycles if we are to build a sustainable future.