In November last year, Engineers Australia’s National Congress agreed to revise EA’s policies on sustainability and climate change. Since then, a steering committee comprised of myself, Deputy President David Cruickshanks-Boyd, and Environmental College Chair Erik Maranik have been working to develop more contemporary policy statements. A group of EA volunteers, drawn mainly from the College of Environmental Engineers and the Sustainable Engineering Society, has ably assisted us in this task.
In August, revised drafts were released for comment. Both policy statements received overwhelming support from members. Final policies have now been submitted to Congress and Council for consideration.
If adopted, the next stage of our journey to improve the environmental sustainability of the engineering profession is to develop an implementation plan to:
- Support engineering professionals to improve their capacity to deliver sustainability outcomes (eg developing case studies, practice notes etc)
- Promote these policy positions to members, government, business, and industry
- Require Engineers Australia’s operations to achieve greater sustainability outcomes
- Strongly socialise these policies through all forms of media
- Require accredited undergraduate, and continuing professional development programs to include sustainability learning
- Embed sustainability as a requirement in engineering competency assessment
If you have ideas to contribute to promoting sustainability through any of the avenues above, feel free to get in touch with the project team by emailing [email protected].
Alice Howe
Chair, Sustainable Engineering Society
Board Member, College of Environmental Engineers
Committee Member, Newcastle Division