I recently had an inspiring chat over coffee with Dick Elsy CBE, chairman of AB Dynamics, whom I was privileged to support during VCUK, the 2020 UK Ventilator Challenge established in response to the Prime Minister’s urgent call for additional ventilators to cope with Covid. Happening around the same time as this conversation were the COP27 meeting and the Aerospace Technology Institute conference, the latter dominated by discussion of the aviation industry’s response to climate change.
Prompted in part by all three of these things, I revisited the VCUK initiative with others from the team to discuss whether we can apply what we learned to add extra pace to current progress towards achieving net zero carbon emissions.
Five points came through clearly and consistently on why VCUK was such a success.
We had a collective compelling purpose and burning platform. As Martin Bolton, fast track leader - industry at Airbus, explained: “… the goal was clear, unambiguous...