Has Engineers Ireland misled its membership and indeed the public? It had Council’s approval “to strengthen members’ commitment to sustainable engineering practice and climate action”[1] from the baseline that already existed in the Code of Ethics(2018). This was also endorsed by the membership: “Climate action and sustainability were a strong theme in the responses to the 2020 Engineers Ireland member survey. When asked whether engineers have an ethical obligation to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, 88% agreed.”[2]
The following is an excerpt taken from the Engineers Ireland press release for World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development in 2020 – We already provided the background to this press release:
{Marguerite Sayers, Engineers Ireland President [2019-2020], also speaking at the launch, declared a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency following a motion at the Engineers Ireland Council: “Engineers Ireland recognises that climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse are the most serious issues of our time. The Council of Engineers Ireland acknowledges the considered opinion of the scientific community that transformational action is required to achieve meaningful outcomes.”}
As recently as July 2022, Engineers Ireland published a policy document ‘Take Urgent Climate Action’ in which it made the following statements:
“Engineers Ireland endorses the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities, and tackle climate change while ensuring no one is left behind.”
“Engineers Ireland has long been committed to the principles and practices of sustainable development, as stated in our Code of Ethics.”
In the days leading up to World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development we published ‘Environment, Ethics and Engineers’, where we asked what “motivated the leadership in Engineers Ireland to remove all references to sustainable development; exclude any reference to Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss; and, erase the section on members’ obligations to the environment and society from the latest revision to the Code of Ethics(2023)?”
And it happened during the first term of the recently appointed Vice President (2022) of Engineers Ireland, the current Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency who also received their professional title of Chartered Engineer along with Fellow of Engineers Ireland by way of Presidential invitation during Presidency (2019-2020) and was then co-opted to the Executive Board of Engineers Ireland by the President (2020-2021).
Since the publication of the Code of Ethics(2023) on 1st February 2023, members of Council of Engineers Ireland were asked “what rationale did the President and Director General put before the Council for omitting the Environmental and Social obligations of members from the proposed revision to the Code of Ethics, which had been in previous versions since 2009, prior to the Council deliberating on it and subsequently approving it?”
Having seen the responses, some were surprisingly choreographed so much so that they resembled a press briefing prepared for media, should the need arise! Others could not recall any discussion. From the outset the replies were consistent in saying that “the review of our Code of Ethics, incorporated a review of a number of similar codes and conduct regulations and feedback from the Engineers Ireland Ethics and Disciplinary Board; Appeal Board; members; as well as two legal reviews.” As we published previously, in “Engineers Ireland and ‘similar’ Professional Organisations” neither the facts nor the documents regarding this review have been disclosed to members of Engineers Ireland.
We have since been informed by a member of Council that according to the December 2022 Council, Minutes of Meeting;
“the President [2022-2023] advised that the documents related to Item 5 (the Code of Ethics Review) ……were not suitable for circulation and should not be circulated outside of Council”.
However, what has come to light since publication of ‘Environment, Ethics and Engineers’ is some clarity on what perhaps might be the motivations behind this direction taken by the leadership of Engineers Ireland.
Income over Integrity
According to Engineers Ireland Sustainability Plan 2022-2023, action fourteen in the Advocacy and Regulation section perhaps provides an insight into the motivation for Engineers Ireland to seek membership of the Society for the Environment (SocEnv – Royal Charter 2004, amended 2019). According to the SocEnv website; “As an umbrella body, the Society for the Environment does not directly award the Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), Registered Environmental Practitioner (REnvP) or Registered Environmental Technician (REnvTech) registrations to professionals. Instead, it licenses professional bodies to award the registration to their appropriately experienced and knowledgeable members”.
Consistent in the replies seen from Council members was the money message:
“those of our members that have a particular interest in environmental matters, Engineers Ireland will soon be rolling out the professional title of Chartered Environmentalist during 2023.”
Action fourteen in the Sustainability Plan 2022-2023 would therefore appear to be about generating revenue rather than integrity.
Ambiguity of Accountability
Again, consistent with replies from Council members was the mantra “It is best to lead by example also, than rely solely on a Code of Ethics and the record of Engineers Ireland is outstanding…..” The scripted responses also convey that the Code of Ethics(2023) “will be supplemented by an information campaign where we can provide more details for members on their expected conduct and provide guidance notes where needed”.
It is indeed concerning that the members of Council who did reply quoted from a scripted response from Engineers Ireland rather than rely on their own recollection of the discourse at the Council meeting. For example, do members of Council not realise that under the reserved functions of Council as outlined in Clause 3.1.3 of the Bye-laws(2012) they will have no function in the development and interpretation of the Code of Ethics in such ’guidance notes’ be it in scrutiny or approval? Their reserved function ended with the “final approval of any proposals prepared by the Executive Board in relation to” e.g., “changes to the Code of Ethics and disciplinary procedures”.
The most sinister finding is, that ambiguity would appear to be the central motivation behind the deletion of the environmental and social obligations of members from the Code of Ethics(2023). Rather than “to allow the code of conduct piece to be shorter and more concise” the more ambiguous the Code of Ethics(2023) is the less informative it is for a ‘Complainant’, e.g., a member of the public, or even a member of Engineers Ireland, to construct a complaint specific to the alleged infringement of concern, thus minimising accountability. How the leadership in Engineers Ireland could proffer that a concise Code of Ethics(2023) was ‘Complainant’ focused that will stand up to scrutiny when in fact, according to the scripted responses, it has already conceded that it will “provide guidance notes where needed” to the members due to the level of ambiguity therein.
Findlay[3] suggests that the “proactive dimension of accountability arises out of the potential to combine responsibility, openness, participation and audit into a motivation towards compliance”. “Effective accountability measures and mechanisms” he says, “gain functional credibility as much from their pressure to alter behaviours and relationships as they do from simply exposing ‘blocks’ to good” governance.
However, he also acknowledges that “audit accountability relies on identifiable structures of responsibility, and codes of conduct against which the behaviour of individuals and organisations might be critically reflected. The audit function of processes of accountability should not only expose individual shortcomings through this comparison, but also inadequacies in these responsibility structures and conduct expectations.”
Members of Engineers Ireland urgently need to recover from the scourge of apathy.
[1] Sustainability Framework Progress Report 2020-2021
[2] Statement of Strategic Intent 2021-2023
[3] Findlay, M., “The Ambiguity of Accountability: Relationships of Corruption and Control”; The Australian Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 2 (1993)
Conscientious Observers 