Blogs

I was inspired by the recognition of climate change as a driving force of change, with threats and opportunities to lose or build operational advantage for defence.  
 
Bringing together representatives from international defence, industry and academia, participants spanned across traditional defence sustainability roles and new perspectives such as virtual reality and simulation of complex systems. 
 
There was broad agreement that a consistent and wide-reaching energy insights model is needed to support our forces to 'use less, do more, and go further'. There is a need to bring common language and standards to the several strands of activity already in motion around this from various national and international organisations. 

Energy provision is likely to diversify before a new coherent system of energy generation and storage solutions is settled upon. This drives defence planners towards a 'proactive fast follower' stance: one in which there is active participation and influence in system design and keen learning from adjacent industries and consumer markets. 
 
There was a sobering review of climate impacts on crucial locations and ways of working, including disruption from sea level rises tied to urbanisation. 
 
We talked about the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration to spot and work on 'the gaps between the gaps', and understanding how training translates into action through processes, policy and standard practises. 
 
The discussion ended with the need to build a resilient supply chain. This includes not only considering an individual organisation's supply chain but systematically identifying criticalities and bottlenecks of vulnerability and focusing on building resilience at these points. 
 
Discussions such as this, particularly those bringing fresh opinions into the debate, help to expand insights and accelerate plans to build climate mitigation and resilience.  
 
The benefit comes when we each take the insights to inform our actions. We need to consider changing landscape, impact, threats and opportunities across defence organisations, industry, supply chains, physical conditions, security and people. Most pressingly, building in key questions such as 'how will this work when the world warms?' is just one tangible input to business as usual decision making that can be a significant lever for change. 

The participants of the roundtable will be collaborating on a report to industry with key observations and advice on how we tackle sustainability issues and opportunities in the defence and security industries.

Read more: