30 January 2025
A conference hosted by the East Anglian branch will offer opportunities for reflection and growth, plus better outcomes for the environment and public
Can you think back to a time when you had an environmental or water-related dilemma at work? This could have been when trying to follow a protocol, or perhaps you were navigating a nuance of diversity and inclusion. Maybe another professional sought advice from you about unchartered territory.
How did that experience go? Was there a discussion to determine the boundaries of acceptability and integrity? How much ambiguity did you notice on the nature of the boundaries and how to test them professionally? Did you also find that your self-growth accelerated?
Here at CIWEM’s East Anglian branch, committee members feel that such discussions, though they can be uncomfortable at times, are potentially valuable learning opportunities that should be embraced. To support this and delve into professional ethics in decision making, we are organising a conference on 25 March 2025.
The scope of the conference
The conference is titled “Keeping ethics relevant in water and environmental management”. It will explore the influence of professional codes of ethics and/or conduct that institutions like CIWEM, the Society for the Environment (SocEnv), Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) create and maintain.
Open to all WEM professionals, whether CIWEM members or not, including those who live and work beyond East Anglia, it is envisaged and hoped that the conference outputs will inform and inspire future good practice.
Recommendations will be shared with relevant professional institutions and universities for consideration in the evolution of their codes of ethics and/or conduct, and further disseminated with other interested organisations.
All registrants will complete a survey on ethics and behaviour, and the anonymised results will be presented at the conference. The questions are the same ones used by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2022 when it was auditing ethical behaviour in the UK engineering profession (you can read the findings of that audit here).
The conference programme
The programme has been designed to enable networking, learning and self-reflection at a comfortable pace. There are three main sessions:
- Ethical concerns that challenge individuals – sharing and exploring scenarios where ethical dilemmas are being faced in the workplace.
- Professional ethics in society – an interactive panel discussion with speakers covering ethics and profitability, ethics in leadership, and philosophy.
- Prioritising ethical decision making in water and environmental management – a collaborative, reflective workshop that discusses potential scenarios and personal experiences of navigating ethical challenges.
Conference speakers
Speakers already confirmed include:
- Hannah Burgess, CIWEM’s President, and a Regional Delivery Director for Binnies.
- Catherine Rowett – a professor in philosophy at the University of East Anglia, Green Party councillor and former Member of European Parliament.
- Omar Abdelwahab – a PhD candidate from the University of the West of England researching ethical behaviours of professional bodies and environmental consultancies.
- Peter Matthews – co-creator of CIWEM’s first Code of Ethics, and past president.
Take part in a unique experience
“It is incumbent on all professionals to behave ethically and professionally – and to be able to hold discussions on such matters in a thoughtful and respectful way,” says Nicholas Howden FICE CWEM FCIWEM, chair of CIWEM’s Professional Standards Committee, who is involved in the planning of the workshop on ethical decision making.
A conference like this has never before been organised by CIWEM. It offers a unique opportunity to share lived experiences and insights, with a view to obtaining better outcomes for the environment and the public.
Given the chance, how would you participate to make a difference? I often think about one professional standard that CIWEM and SocEnv sets for its members: to serve as an example to others for responsible environmental behaviour. Should this also apply to our personal lifestyles, I wonder? It’ll be interesting to hear the views at the conference and if there’s a consensus.
Register for the conference or offer an anonymised scenario or lived experience for discussion on the day, here.
To get notifications on further speakers and chairs as they are confirmed, follow the CIWEM East Anglian Branch LinkedIn page.
Author: Eddie Robinson, freelance sustainable living consultant and past chair of the CIWEM East Anglian branch