Sustainability The Criterion for Project Acceptability

1
Sustainability The Criterion for Project
Acceptability

• BIMILACI Presentation
• Washington
• April 8 2005

2
Early FIDIC Actions

• Major theme since 1990
• Key Focus of new strategic plan
• Concluded early that we could-
• Run our own businesses in a sustainable fashion,
  but
• Biggest leverage was to run our clients projects
  in a sustainable fashion

3
Recent FIDIC Activities

• FIDIC Industry Sector Report
• Sustainable Development in the Consulting
  Engineering Industry
• Impediments of sustainability in our industry
• New skills required for stakeholder interface
• Lack of project measures

4
Issues of Scale and Conversion

• Translation from global to project scale
• Problems of definition
• How do we get there?
• How do we measure success?
• How to scale stakeholder input?

5
Design principles

• Sustainability is a location dependant whole
  society concept
• Who is a stakeholder?
• Sustainability is a moving target
• Goals and corresponding indicators must evolve
• Sustainability will be achieved one project at a
  time
• Achieving sustainability will be a long journey
• Essentially a complete overhaul of the worlds
  infrastructure
• Progress will be made through continuous
  improvement

6
Design Principles (2)

• Sustainable projects do not have to be perfect
• Progress, not perfection
• Sustainability targets are defined by Agenda 21
• These are what world governments agreed were the
  top priority problems and issues
• Focus allows progress
• Sustainability requires an environment of
  innovation
• Most of the required technologies, processes and
  systems have yet to be invented

7
UN Core Indicators the basics

• Categories, themes, sub-themes, and indicators
  from UN Commission on Sustainable Development
  (CSD)
• 65 social, environmental, institutional, and
  financial indicators
• Most engineering projects relate to and may
  impact social environmental and financial
  indicators
• Some few may also have an impact on institutional
  indicators.

8
FIDIC Translations

• Example Social//Equity//Poverty//converted from
  Percent of population living below the poverty
  line to Proportion of workers or companies
  employed on the project from the local area

9
Sustainable Development Project Goals and
Indicators
10
Sustainable Development Goals and Indicators
Conceptual Model
Environmental
Economic
Social
Category
Themes
Sub-themes
Indicators
11
PSM Process
12
Impact on our industry

• State of the art knowledge
• Best of practice focus
• Benchmark publication
• Comprehensive project involvement
• Facilitation skills critical
• Commodity services doesnt cut it
• QBS required
• Lead

13
Next steps

• Sustainability Global Leadership in Beijing
• Training course for industry and clients
• Specialized perspectives
• Sustainability even in disaster relief
• Sustainable procurement
• Publications and case histories