Webinar roundup
Thanks to Birketts’ Catherine Andrews, Katrina Bretten, Julie Gowland, and Steven Williams for the Construction and engineering Autumn update, Lockton and its speakers David Isherwood and Jessica Snowdon for their PII presentation, as well as author Nick Robinson for his webinar on ‘How to deal with difficult people’.
Engineering Council and NCEES (USA) sign historic mutual recognition agreement
The Engineering Council has signed a landmark mutual recognition agreement (MRA) with the USA’s National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). The agreement is the first of its kind with any international counterpart in the NCEES’s 104-year history and establishes a streamlined process for recognising professional engineering qualifications between the UK and the USA. It will ensure that engineers can practise across borders with greater ease and without compromising on professional standards.
The Survey Association celebrates 45 years
Celebrating its sapphire anniversary, the TSA which started in 1973 by Bill Johnston – then the managing director of Engineering Surveys in Surrey – originally begun life as the Association of Land Surveyors. The leading lights at that time were Bill himself, Stan Longdin, Ron Craven, Derek Simmons, John Webb and Martyn Iffland, and it was initially agreed to call it the UK Land & Hydrographic Survey Association. However, the Registrar of Companies did not accept it and the search for a name landed on the finally agreed, The Survey Association (TSA), on 3 October 1979.
Guidance released to tackle major greenhouse emissions in the environment and engineering sectors
Pledge to Net Zero, the environmental sector’s programme to take fast action on greenhouse gas emissions, has published practical ways for environmental and engineering professionals to estimate greenhouse gases in their designs and advice. Currently it has the largest greenhouse gas impact of the sector – the UN Environment Programme reports that the buildings and construction sector account for 37% of emissions globally. However, these are not effectively included in current science based targets as they fall outside the boundaries of the greenhouse gas protocol for scope 3 emissions.
The guidance provides metho ds to estimate carbon impact in the advice and design work in support of the Race to Zero campaign’s report – Catalysing Climate Action: The role of professional service providers in realising a net-zero future. It discusses three methods that firms can use, each with various levels of detail and purposes; ‘Fast assessment based on fee’, ‘Project portfolio estimate based on fee/design activity’, and ‘Attribution based on project whole life carbon’.
The approaches are provided in draft for comment and all firms are welcome to provide feedback and suggestions to improve these over the coming months. To view the guidance, visit www.pledgetonetzero.org/reports.
