The Department of Chemical and Process Engineering of the University of Moratuwa with the partnership of the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Sri Lanka and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Sri Lanka, successfully conducted the National Chemical and Process Engineering Conference, COMPASS on 25th of November 2016 from 12.30p.m. onwards at the BMICH (Committee Rooms). The conference was held under the theme of “Sustainable Consumption and Production”, with the participation of over 40 eminent speakers.
The conference was aimed at bringing together personnel from Government organizations, Non-governmental organizations and the Corporate Arena and Academia for an intellectual dialogue based on exploring the opportunities available to use Engineering Skills and knowledge, especially those of Chemical & Process Engineering, in the journey towards achieving Sustainable Development in Sri Lanka. Sustainable consumption and production being the main focal point of the conference, the event agenda was structured to include a main session followed by a two-hour period during which four parallel sessions were conducted simultaneously based on 4 selected UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely, SDG 2: Zero Hunger, SDG 6: Clean Water & Sanitation, SDG 7: Affordable & Clean Energy and SDG 9: Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure. The sessions included keynote speeches by experts, dynamic panel discussions on relevant topics and real life case studies on sustainability.
The distinguished chief guest at the event was Mr. Ranjith Page, a chemical engineer by profession and the CEO of Cargills Ceylon PLC, one of country’s leading organizations to have enthusiastically incorporated concepts of sustainability into their business agenda. Using his own experience at Cargills, he demonstrated how entire business models could be designed around concepts of sustainability. The plenary session of the event consisted of two keynote speeches and a panel discussion on “Sustainability, Policy and the Chemical Engineering Perspective”. The first keynote speech of the day, on the main theme of the event was delivered by Professor Ajith de Alwis, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering and the Project Director at the Coordinating Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI). The second keynote speech of the day on “Product Designing for Sustainability” was delivered by Mr. Tilak Dissanayake, CEO of Ants Global (Pvt.) Ltd and a former product design engineer at Boeing and Xerox.
The event was attended by over 350 participants comprising of industry delegates, academics, representatives from government and non-government bodies, students and general public with a keen interest towards sustainability. The Department of Chemical and Process Engineering is strongly committed to build on the significant momentum gained through this event and positively contribute toward the sustainability efforts of this country. Therefore, it could very well be stated that the end of the event COMPASS marked the beginning of another challenging journey.
