A greying fellow reflects on... Sustainability
George Bothamley FCInstCES
I RECENTLY engaged with preparation for the CICES upcoming Sustainability White Paper, and quickly reflected on how individual CPD can be key to achieving its objectives and how closely increasing sustainability is linked to improving productivity, which I reflected on in several CES editions during 2021. I will from time to time reflect on both of these aspects with a view to providing you, the reader, with some ideas you may build on for your contributions to sustainability that your CICES membership requires.
The Sustainability White Paper, to be developed during 2023, will put in place a digital plan for sustainability that works for our members, clients, and society at large. It will align with the CICES Sustainability Policy.
This policy has eight CICES pledges and fourteen members’ pledges. Fourteen! A long list to read to the bottom, but not easily reduced by combining or eliminating some items, which perhaps shows the seriousness of the issue. How are you getting on with achieving these pledges? Does your CPD plan for and record your progress?
Pledges
Future reflections will include looking at the Sustainability White Paper proposals as they emerge and reflecting on how they can be implemented to achieve our sustainability pledges and also relating previous experiences that can be built on to achieve the pledges. For instance, one of the members’ pledges is to adopt life cycle costing, whole-life carbon modelling and post-construction evaluation.
Although challenging to retain simplicity despite the addition of more data, it should be possible to produce such a tool, and to make it much better than those we used in the pre-digital age.
A future reflection will draw on experience from option selection on capital water industry projects, and how what was done in the past can be developed for the digital age. A key issue is to establish for every aspect of every option considered a whole life cost, carbon and biodiversity assessment, so that the best solution is adopted and then to monitor the actual outcomes.
This requires a simple calculator that gives a roughly right answer quickly.
Although challenging to retain simplicity despite the addition of more data, it should be possible to produce such a tool, and to make it much better than those we used in the pre-digital age. Perhaps CICES will develop a simple app that can be used for this purpose. Perhaps you will be able to help produce it. It could be called a Q3R code, the app for quick, robust, roughly right calculation of whole life cost and carbon effect.
This is one of the aspects that is closely linked to improving productivity.
Improved productivity is essentially achieving more with the same resource or the same with less resource, so will always be more sustainable. Even unsustainable activities will be less unsustainable if productivity is improved.
As with improving productivity, becoming more sustainable is an issue that requires macro interventions that many of us are not in a position to influence. But we can all make micro contributions to increased sustainability by our own actions. This can be in our professional life by having sustainability at the forefront of all of our activities and by using CPD to increase our expertise and productivity.
Personal contributions
We can also contribute through our personal activity. A recent international report suggests a number of ways that individuals can contribute to increased sustainability, including:
If we all try to make individual small steps, collectively we can make big strides.
- Eat green (ecologically sound food production, eliminate food waste)
- Holiday locally (one short-haul flight every three years, one long-haul flight every seven years)
- Reduce clutter (have less stuff)
- Dress retro (clothes that last longer or second-hand)
- Keep electronic devices longer (at least seven years)
- Talk about it (discussing sustainability is more likely to result in it happening).
Which of these will you try? If we all try to make individual small steps, collectively we can make big strides. Hopefully these and future reflections will stimulate you to making your contribution to CICES and its members’ contributions to increasing sustainability.
George Bothamley FCInstCES