Climate Change Charter calls on consulting engineers to aim high

The global body for consulting engineers has released a charter calling on the entire profession to address climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience in the decades to come – and ACE New Zealand has signed up.

FIDIC Climate Change CharterFIDIC, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, represents more than one million engineering professionals and 40,000 firms in more than 100 countries worldwide. 

Its new Climate Change Charter is designed to inspire the profession and its key stakeholders to become experts in carbon engineering, and the ways to mitigate and eliminate its impact upon our planet.  

It outlines a series of actions for FIDIC member associations (including ACE New Zealand), project teams and schemes, companies and individual engineers. 

FIDIC recognises that companies have very different levels of expertise and capacities to address and impact climate change, but asks all firms to take action that will reduce carbon emissions and improve the resilience of buildings and infrastructure.  

Engineering and consulting companies are encouraged to make commitments across their business, taking into consideration their capacity, scale and resources and local business environment. Those commitments include:  

  • Creating a culture that encourages the development of net zero solutions 
  • Assigning a climate champion to every major project  
  • Developing their engineers’ climate skills and supporting their competence in carbon literacy 
  • Investing in tools and platforms to help employees to calculate the carbon load of their designs 
  • Resource teams to assess and report the total carbon load of every project  

The charter was launched last week at COP26 in Glasgow and FIDIC Chief Executive Dr Nelson Ogunshakin said it was a “truly global aspirational charter that places engineers at the heart of change to help meet the climate challenge”. 

“The climate challenge is one that no section of society can ignore if we are to achieve a sustainable quality of life. Never before has it been so important that the entire infrastructure sector is engaged in the debate as to how we address this issue tackle its significance and scale going forward.”  

ACE New Zealand Chief Executive Helen Davidson says the charter, as well as Engineering New Zealand’s new programme Engineering Climate Action, provides a clear path ahead for professional services businesses in Aotearoa to make vital and meaningful change.  

“The tide of conversation in the engineering sector is turning, and we know our members are ramping up their climate action to meet the significant challenges ahead.  

“This charter reinforces the urgency and scale of change required, and ACE New Zealand is committed to encouraging all our members to adopt best practice in climate change mitigation and adaptation.”   

View and download the FICID Climate Change Charter

Sign up to the FICID Climate Change Charter

Check out Engineering New Zealand's programme Engineering Climate Action