Well, yesterday I went to see another automotive company who are keen to develop their green credentials. Interestingly, they’re an American company, like the air conditioning company I went to see last week, and they have a very similar policy when it comes to the environment – try to meet legislation, don’t go much further. I’m not saying that they weren’t doing a good job in reducing their waste water and their emmisions but they certainly weren’t trialling anything innovative. Similarly, the lean systems that I saw looked a little half-hearted and they indicated that they had had problems instilling a lean culture into the factory. I think I am beginning to see the difference between a multinational company telling their Brazilian site how to operate and a multinational company guiding their into sustainable policy. It was also interesting to note that whilst at the automotive company I was told that they never have funding requests for environmental projects rejected, this was directly disputed by one of the university professors that I spoke with today. He told me that a few years ago they worked with this particular company on a project to treat their solid waste and that funding had never been approved for it, so it was dropped.
Today I spent the day with a team from one of the local universities who are working with a group of five women who have set up a social enterprise; they recycle commercial cooking oil into soap. The lead professor explained that a couple of years ago the university carried out a similar project with a local company who transported waste but the solution that they devised was not suitable. The reason for this, he said, was that they had only considered the technical aspects and not the way in which the product would be used by the customer. Learning from their mistakes, the university has set up a cross-campus team of students and professors to help this social enterprise develop not only suitable manufacturing processes, but also a suitable business model. There are team members from the Environmental Management department, Psychology and Chemical Engineering to name but a few. I think this is fantastic that the university is using such a worthwhile cause as a case-study for their students, instead of letting a multinational company use the knowledge and resources of the university for free.
A number of points struck me today – firstly, the vast majority of Environmental Engineers in Brazil are women. Almost everyone I have met both in companies and in universties has been a woman. Obviously this is great progress and will hopefully encourage more women to join other disciplines, but I wonder why it is so attractive to female students? When I spoke to people about it today, they said it was because it has a cleaner, more “glamourous” appeal than a discpline like mechanical engineering, which typically evokes images of workshops and heavy machinery (although there is nothing clean or glamourous about a sewage treatment plant or a landfill site so maybe there is a flaw in this thinking..?!).
Secondly – and I think the most poignant – I was talking to a Brazilian student today and he expressed his surprise in talking to me; he said “In school we are taught that English people are cold and not friendly”. I think this is so tragic; the impression that people have of England is really not good. Every time I speak to someone about football (on a daily basis… this is Brazil!) the first thing they say is “Hooligans!”. Even if they do not speak English they know the word “Hooligan!”. It begs the question, did we really deserve to host the World Cup if this is what the rest of the world thinks of us?
sophieignitesherfuture 