Wednesday 15 January 2014

Towards a Sustainable Railway - Part 2

A few weeks ago, I met an environmental consultant who told me about a small architectural practice which he had helped to implement an environmental management system accredited under ISO14001 – but this ONLY related to their office environment, not their project work. I'm not sure which of us was more surprised by this conversation: me, that any company could be stupid enough to think that recycling the office's waste paper is 'doing enough' while failing to address energy efficiency and waste in the buildings they design, or him, when I told him that no public sector client would ever employ a consultant engineering firm in today's marketplace who doesn't have an effective EMS for their projects.
But sometimes I wonder if we have allowed this to put sustainability in a box.
At every inter-disciplinary design meeting I attend, there will be an 'environmental' person there, responsible for a whole suite of issues from ecology and habitat (yes, I'm talking great crested newts and Japanese Knotweed here!) and noise/air pollution to heritage and waste disposal. We also have contaminated land specialists who will tell us if there are any nasties in the ground which we may be digging up or moving around.
So does that mean that I can then say “It's OK, we've got someone to think about that for us, but environment isn't my specialism. I'm just a civil/track/signalling/electrical engineer so it's not my problem”? It seems to me that whichever sector you're in, you can't win: while my colleagues in highways have been heard to opine “Well, I do my best, but I build roads for a living and that'll never be sustainable”, the attitude of many railway engineers seems to be: “Trains are more sustainable than cars already so I don't need to do anything more than just my day job”.
I'm glad to say that this attitude is changing – recent graduates in my team have told me how surprised they were that having spent four years learning about all kinds of sustainable building techniques at university, we seem to be taking a long time to implement sustainable ways of working (construction and especially railways are very conservative!) But it still makes me wonder: to what extent does EVERY engineer believe it is their responsibility to find a solution that is best value for the environment and the client?
In the meantime, all I can say is this: I am 'just' a civil engineer but I will commit myself this year to finding out more about sustainable methods and techniques which can be applied to the rail sector, and proposing appropriate ideas for each project I am involved in – and I think that's an essential part of my day job.
See also:
Towards a Sustainable Railway - Part 1
January Challenges


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