Ep 97 The Stubborn Bull: Robin Power on Why Changing Engineering Could Change Everything

About this episode

Robin Power discusses the potential for civil engineering to drive sustainability and the challenges of being a change agent in a conservative industry.

EPISODE OVERVIEW Seventy percent. That's the share of Australia's emissions associated with the infrastructure we build and operate — roads, railways, airports, tunnels. And the profession best placed to move that number? Civil engineering. Which also happens to be one of the most conservative industries on the planet. Robin Power is the Chief Executive of Insitutek and the founding Chair of Ground Level Alliance — a volunteer-powered non-profit with a single ambition: to make sustainability a daily practice for the people who design and build our world. He's not a civil engineer by training. He's a manufacturing engineer — which means he sees the industry through a people-and-process lens that most in the sector don't have. And it was that outsider's perspective, combined with a painful experience of losing everything in a failed property venture, that set him on the path to purpose. In this conversation, Robin and Carolyn explore what it really means to use business as a force for good — and what it costs to choose to be a change agent in an industry that doesn't always want to change. THEMES EXPLORED Business as a relationship — and what it means to show up for clients when…

People in this episode

Host: Carolyn Butler- Madden

Guest: Robin Power

Topics covered

• sustainability
• civil engineering
• business as a force for good
• emissions reduction
• change agents
• infrastructure

Keywords

• civil engineering
• sustainability
• infrastructure
• emissions
• business
• change agent
• Australia

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Insitutek, Ground Level Alliance

Places: Australia, London Underground

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