Sustainable Futures Seminar Series 29 february 2024

On the 29th February 2024, Sustainable Futures held the second 2024 iteration of their monthly online seminar series. In this edition, the University Living Lab and the role of AI in estimating cost for Engineering Sustainability and Social Responsibility were discussed. Chaired by Dr Stephen Lowe, the seminar included two talks from Professor Jennifer O'brien and Dr Paul Baguley, both researchers at The University of Manchester.

After an introduction provided by Dr Lowe, Prof. Jennifer O'brien gave the first presentation of the seminar titled 'A 43,000 strong force for change: Sustainability impact through the University Living Lab and student assessment.' Jennifer is a Lecturer in Geography and also the Academic Lead for Sustainability, Teaching and Learning at The University of Manchester. She is also the Lead for the Inspired and Informed Futures Challenge of Sustainable Futures.

Her talk was centred around assessing Sustainability impact at the University through the University Living Lab, which makes use of UoM student assesments. Read Prof. O'brien's abstract of the talk below:

'Student assessment is an undervalued resource for sustainability (O’Brien, 2019). At University of Manchester our 43,000 interdisciplinary students all undertake assessment which could be better used. Drawing on Education for Sustainable Development, the University Living Lab brokers applied research framed around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals between organisations and students who can use it for their degree assessment. This approach offers flexible, accessible assessment that enhances employability and student experience whilst positioning interdisciplinary students within Sustainability. Interdisciplinary (free!) research adds value to organisations’ work. Thanks in part to HEIF funding, more than 1000 students have worked with a huge range of partner organisations, including international consultants, governments, NGOs, health bodies, charities and local businesses. Impact ranges from constructing sustainable urban infrastructure to framing council policy and informing NGO strategy. Two students have been employed by organisations they did their research for, many more attribute employment to this experience. Our award winning Lab is an open source of research, and pedagogic knowledge. Drawing on student voice, this presentation critically shares the scalable approach (O’Brien, et al., 2021) which unites teaching and research whilst transforming the ability of universities to support sustainability transitions (Evans et al., 2015). We invite partnership through assessment and projects.'

Jennifer’s presentation was concluded with a live Q&A session with attendees.

After a spirited talk from Prof. O'Brien, Dr Paul Baguley was up next with his presentation 'Using Artificial Intelligence to Estimate the Cost of Engineering Sustainability and Social Responsibility: The Role of the Cost Engineer in Project Management.' Paul is a Lecturer in Project Cost Management at The University of Manchester Engineering Management Department. Paul has worked with over twenty different companies and has over fifty academic publications. Paul is also Chair of the cost estimating community of practice at the Association of Cost Engineers.

His talk discussed the use of Artificial Intelligence in predicting and managing costs in sustainability projects. Read Dr Baguley's presentation abstract below:

'It has been said that accountants know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. In the wide engineering industry cost engineers are from Venus and the commercial bid team are from Mars. The United Nations has used the term global boiling. Stakeholders in society are using the term real price of products to reflect on the cost of clean-up and environmental damage. However, it seems that despite exciting innovations in engineering nothing gets done if there is no profit given to shareholders and projects can beat cost competition to get done in the first place. This has largely been the case despite the increasing requirements of sustainability and social responsibility.

The talk discusses the role of the cost engineer in industry and plots its historical development to its current state of disruption. Several industry cases are presented demonstrating the challenge of estimating cost under uncertainty for projects. A case study with a global asset management company has been conducted to estimate Environmental Social Governance (ESG) cost using ArtificiaI Intelligence. In particular machine learning techniques have modelled cost and building data to predict emissions as a proxy for sustainability cost.'

Another live Q&A session involving attendees of the seminar followed and the event was soon wrapped up.

If you missed the event, you can watch it back here:

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