(Article from Journal 2022/01 Vol140 Pt1)

AUTHOR: Jessal Murarji CENG FINSTRE FPWI FGS FRSA

Jessal gives advice to engineering consultancies that carry out work for organisations managing civil engineering assets or developing property that could have an impact on civil infrastructure. Be warned if you consult him: he won’t just do what is prescribed but will advise you what he thinks is right – whether you like it or not! (He still gets repeat business!) Jessal was the Professional Head of Infrastructure at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), and did stints at Network Rail, engineering consultancies and contractors.

INTRODUCTION

As engineers, we’re often told our decisions should be evidenced-based and data-led, but there are other factors in decision making. Having been privileged enough to work for an organisation whose Values and Standards_¹ are inextricably linked – I am frustrated by the lack of values-based decision making by the built-environment professions. In this opinion piece, I give three examples of where putting values first would have helped: in building safety, railway safety, and with the climate crisis we now face.

STANDARDS

The International Organization for Standardization defines a standard² as a ‘document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context’. The British Standards Institution website³ adds to this definition to put it more succinctly: it is ‘an agreed way of doing something’.

But is a standard just the reference kilogram? Is it just a railway station platform dimension? These industry-agreed requirements share the same word as the moral rules that the Army links to its values. Standards should make things better. They can’t do that without proper application. That requires professionals to remember that ethics are a part of their competency.

ETHICS

Ethics have always been an important part of all professions. As engineers, many of us sign up to professional codes of conduct. The Hippocratic oath⁴, attributed to Hippocrates around 400 BC, is historically taken by physicians.

But we can all learn from it and follow the central requirement to do no harm.

Ethical decision making is never easy, and we often find ourselves torn by the best course to take; how is it possible to construct a new building or piece of civil engineering infrastructure without doing any harm to the environment? How do we do the right thing with limited funds?

BUILDING SAFETY

The fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017, which tragically killed 72 people, shocked and saddened us all.
The public inquiry and criminal investigation⁵ are still ongoing, but there are already lessons we can learn. Of course, the inquiry has, and will, focus on the emergency response and the retrofitted cladding which spread the fire so quickly; but this disaster should also be a wake-up call to engineers and other built environment professionals to consider ethics more when making decisions.

The cladding used consisted of a polyethylene core sandwiched between, and fusion bonded to, two aluminium sheets. This is a commonly used form of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding; cladding panels with a mineral rather than polymer core offer better fire performance⁶.

Several other major high-rise building fires have been attributed to similar cladding systems in recent years, at: Lakanal House in Camberwell (2009), the Wooshin Golden Suites in Busan (2010), the Lacrosse Tower in Melbourne (2014), and the Marina Torch and the Address Downtown in Dubai (both 2015).

If you were specifying cladding for a block of flats, would you choose a combustible material? The question is not whether you would stick to the letter of the law (although there’s compelling evidence showing this wasn’t the case⁷ at Grenfell on the installation of the cladding, much as those involved might argue otherwise), but whether you would do what is right for people living in that block. Would a target to save money impact your decision-making?

RAILWAY SAFETY

Accidents such as the 1988 Clapham Junction and 1999 Ladbroke Grove rail crashes, led to a shake-up of how the GB mainline railway was managed, with clearer responsibilities for infrastructure maintenance and operations, and ensuring independence and impartiality of standards development and the analysis of safety related data.

Since Ladbroke Grove, many improvements to safety have been made by the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), the Office of Rail and Road, Network Rail, and the other railway organisations.

For anyone making a change to railway infrastructure, rolling stock, equipment, or operations today – RSSB’s Taking Safe Decisions⁸ guides in: identifying the need to make a change; deciding what that change should be and comparing the options by risk assessment; making the change safely; then checking it was the right decision. But things are not perfect on the railways. Track worker safety has been in the spotlight for a few years. Prior to the Stoat’s Nest Junction fatality of November 2018, there had been no fatal accidents for several years – but this accident was followed by Margam, Roade and Surbiton within 36 months.

Network Rail’s Track Worker Safety Task Force launched in 2019; as a result, unassisted lookout working reduced from about 20% in July 2019 to approximately 11% of work orders in February 2021⁹ and has now been virtually eliminated¹⁰. In August 2021, 0.9% of work was delivered using unassisted lookout working, and this type of working is currently on course to cease by the end of 2021¹¹. Network Rail, through Nick Millington’s leadership of the Task Force, deserves praise for reducing it by this much, and its Scotland Route should be applauded for being the first to prohibit unassisted Red Zone working. But why did it take so long? More of us should have planned work using other protection methods. More of us should have shown the moral courage1 to say no to Red Zone working.

CLIMATE CHANGE

We haven’t been doing enough to slow down climate change, or to deal with the issues it will bring. Global warming has led to the extreme weather events we have been experiencing – high temperatures, heavy precipitation, droughts, intense tropical cyclones, as well as reductions in Arctic Sea ice. The recent IPCC report¹² is clear: ‘It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.’

To limit global warming, we need to limit cumulative CO2 emissions, reaching at least net zero CO2 emissions, along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions. We have known this for a long time.

As Webb¹³ asserts: ‘Developers, contractors, architects and engineers and other professionals have been the main part of the problem for a long time. Buildings, under construction or in use – have produced more CO2 than any other sector.’

What can engineers do in our decision-making to help? Here’s one tip: we can’t rely on, or wait for, legislation and standards. We need to start making changes now.

Concrete and steel have been our materials of choice for a long time. We have also known for a long time that these materials have high embodied carbon. Much work has been done in recent years to develop tools to calculate embodied carbon, such as RSSB’s Rail Carbon Tool and IStructE’s Structural Carbon Tool. We need to start considering the use of other materials such as timber and stone more seriously and use them where we can.
Nature-based solutions¹⁴ can substitute or complement traditional engineered solutions. Levees and floodwalls for example, provide a single benefit but impact river-floodplain ecosystems, and require considerable long-term maintenance. In contrast, nature-based solutions for flood management, such as planting vegetation, can reduce flood risk while benefiting water quality, nutrient sequestration, and biodiversity, and require less maintenance.
If in doubt, plant a tree!

WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING

Whether we’re making decisions on the cladding material for a building or considering sending our mates out to work on track when trains are still running, or we’re thinking about when to apply decarbonisation measures – we must be professional. This means looking at the impact of our decisions holistically – on individuals, society, and the environment; and doing what is right, rather than what is easier or cheaper.

To help us with this, the Engineering Council and Royal Academy of Engineering have laid out the following ethical principles¹⁵:

1. Honesty and integrity
2. Respect for life, law, the environment and public good
3. Accuracy and rigour
4. Leadership and communication
   

Having these principles laid out does not make ethical decision making easy; if you are in a dilemma – discuss it with your colleagues and other peers. Be ready to challenge your clients and managers.

I will finish with a quote from one of my gurus, Marcus Aurelius¹⁶: “No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!”

REFERENCES

1. Values and Standards of the British Army: https://www.army.mod.uk/media/5219/20180910-values_standards_2018_final.pdf
2. ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004, Standardization and related activities – General vocabularyDefinition read in: BS 0:2016; A standard for standards. Principles of standardization
3. https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/standards/Information-about-standards/what-is-a-standard/
4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hippocratic-oath
5. Answer to question of the Mayor of London on the Metropolitan Police investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire, 18 September 2020: https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2020/3082
6. Grenfell Tower Fire, Designing Buildings Wiki (www.designingbuildings.co.uk), last edited 06 September 2021
7. Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report Overview; Report of the Public Inquiry into the Fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017, October 2019
8. Taking Safe Decisions, Issue 3, August 2019, Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB)
9. Annual Health and Safety Report 2020/21, A summary of health and safety performance, operational learning, and risk reduction activities on Britain’s railway., RSSB
10. Permanent Way Institution Journal, October 2021, N Millington (referred to prior to publication)
11. Message from N Millington relayed by PWI 03 September 2021
12. Climate Change 2021, The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers, Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 07 August 2021
13. Royal Institute of British Architects Journal, Time to stop tinkering with global warming, Steve Webb, 13 September 2019
14. Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), July 2020
15. Statement of Ethical Principles; for the engineering profession; Engineering Council and the Royal Academy of Engineering; 2014
16. Meditations; Marcus Aurelius; (Perhaps finished close to his death in 180); Translated with notes by Martin Hammond; With an introduction by Diskin Clay; Penguin Books 2006

This paper was published in the December 2021 edition of the Royal Engineers Journal, and is reproduced with permission of the author and the editor of that publication.