Editor's comment: A world of difference

It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? After two years where our personal freedom has been somewhat constrained by the pandemic, March’s unseasonal warm Spring weather saw us being asked to stay indoors because the air pollution levels had become dangerously high.

But seriously folks, as the pandemic recedes, an even greater global challenge in the form of climate change is emerging. With unprecedented weather events, such as extreme temperatures and devastating floods occurring with alarming regularity, the topic of sustainability now matters more than ever.

Recently, my work offices were flooded by an unusually high Spring tide. Whilst I was frantically using boxes of old magazines as makeshift sandbags to stem the flow of river water streaming through one door, my personal computer was gently floating away through another!

Life on earth as currently lived is simply not sustainable. Please excuse the pun, but sustainability is the absolute hot topic for our industry as a whole - and recycling plays a huge part of it too.

In this issue, composites show JEC World’s show organisers explain why sustainability will be at the centre of its 2022 event. Elsewhere, Dr Jill Miscandlon of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland’s Digital Factory says that while sustainability used to be a niche focus area, it’s now become an industry-shared problem.

Clearly, we all have some serious net zero targets to reach, but getting there will mean adopting a multidisciplinary approach - and much more cross-sector collaboration. The race to net zero will require our industry coming together to solve this fundamental issue. Anyone seeking more information need look no further than some of the topics featured in this issue that are helping to make a world of difference. Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing you at JEC World.