During the past 20 years, numerous governmental and non governmental organizations have recognized the importance of integrating environmental concerns into the decision-making process in all kinds of development and processing activities. Consulting engineers accept the challenge of an endangered environment and therefore in 1994, FIDIC (The International Federation of Consulting Engineers) issued and distributed, first to its own members, and later to its clients and others, a Guide for Action concerning consulting engineers and the environment.
FIDIC is probably not very well known in the Czech Republic, since the Czech Association is one of the newest members of FIDIC. FIDIC was founded in 1913 and is the international representative body of the consulting engineering industry. Its membership consists of 63 national associations, representing more than 40,000 member firms and employs about 400,000 staff worldwide.
Having accepted the challenge of the endangered environment, FIDIC agreed as early as 1990 on its Policy Statement for Consulting Engineers and the Environment. This declares that engineers should provide leadership in achieving sustainable development.
The policy statement recommends consulting engineers should:
The major spheres of influence with respect to achieving sustainable development include government legislation, enterprise activity, knowledge and education, and public awareness.
The progress towards sustainable development is slow, and resistance to change omnipresent. Governments are critical of business, in business there is frustration concerning bureaucracy and potential legal proceedings, and there is uncertainty among all parties involved as to what effects pollution and mitigating efforts will have.
There is no monopoly of wisdom in today's situation, but rather a competition of ideas on how to solve environmental problems. When some ideas have proved profitable, development towards sustainability has became integrated with market forces and environmentally sound projects and processes no longer became just a matter of responsible conduct. They instead became a matter of management, environmental management. As with traditional management and technical problem solving, it is not surprising that consultancy forms a key activity in the process of developing environmental management. Progress is influenced by:
The major global environmental problems are:
These problems have changed the world's attitudes with regard to consumption, production and conducting business. The responses to the challenges vary. Some have changed style rapidly, others more slowly. The business community has responded fairly slowly, however, momentum has increased over the years, particularly since the publication in 1990 of the International Chamber of Commerce's (ICC) 'Business Charter for Sustainable Development'. The challenges for enterprises are envisaged as follows:
The Environmental Management System Training Resource Kit (EMS TRK) illustrates the link between problems in general and their causes. This is the traditional market for consulting engineers, i.e., technical problem solving.
The trainers kit is a comprehensive, but focused, introduction to environmental management. It includes:
The core of the EMS TRK is the lectures, which contain the following chapters
FIDIC will assist in:
FIDIC markets and sells this kit both externally, as is here in Prague, and within our own organization; for we do recognize that improved environmental knowledge is needed among our members. We will therefore arrange a seminar as part of our next annual meeting in Cape Town, South Africa a year from now. This seminar will be directed towards traditional civil engineering consulting firms, and the trainers will be personnel from multidisciplinary companies, there being many such companies within the FIDIC family.
Will there be professional certification requirements within the field of EMS as there already are in environmental auditing? Personally IĞm not sure that is the way forward, but I would rather like to see enterprises and governmental organizations certified, than individuals. Thank you for this opportunity to briefly present how consulting engineers, as a business organization, approach the new environmental challenges.
