Oz NDY – Shirking Work or Exercising Moral Courage?
Introduction
This wasn’t my intended blog but I wanted to share this now as it only happened yesterday. This blog covers my reactions to being tasked with a piece of sustainability work that I feel is not aligned with my DAP and therefore is likely to fall short of meeting my UK-SPEC requirements. I’m not one to shy away from work but I feel there is sound justification for doing so in this instance.
Background
When I first arrived here I made it a point to explain my raison d’être to both my immediate boss and mentor. I talked through my DAP and expressed examples where I thought I could meet my outstanding UK-SPEC requirements. In particular, E3 – undertake activates in a way that contributes to sustainable development. My take on this, pretty much identical to the bullet points from the UK-SPEC, was to get involved on a new project where I could conduct the stakeholder engagement piece, understand which star rating (on the Green Star spectrum) they wanted to aim for, and be creative and imaginative in coming up with design solutions. Well it hasn’t quite panned out that way…yet.
Issue
The week prior to my immediate boss arriving back in office from extended holidays (cue identified miscommunication) I was given the heads up that there was some sustainability work I could help out with. This seemed to be well timed as one of the sustainability team was about to depart on maternity leave.
On conducting the initial sustainability meeting/training to understand the project and my involvement it became very apparent that what was actually being asked of me was nothing more than an admin and certificate gathering task.
The project
The project, Capital Square, is a new development on the edge of the Perth CBD and the developer has a major tenant, Woodside (in the mining, oil and gas industry) ready to move-in once complete. They were promised all kinds of sustainable initiatives in their current tenancy but the building owner hasn’t come through on any of them. So, they are eager to move into Capital Square and have expressed their need for all the bells and whistles. In Green Star rating terms this translates to a 6 Star building which requires 75 of 100 pts to be awarded the World Leadership title (there isn’t any higher rating at present).
Issue continued…
This all sounded great until I was told that all the Environmentally Sustainable Design had been done and the big push now was to compile all the relevant information (certificates and documents) that provides the evidence of the building actually meeting the points they aspired to. NDY use their own purpose built template (in excel) in which to track the status of this information. The end state being to submit the collated information pack to the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) by the end of Mar 16. A quick estimate means that I would be spending 50% of my remaining time on Phase 3 doing this admin based work; not a very constructive use of my time. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t learn anything from doing this work but I can easily get the majority of what I need from a simple review of the template used for this project, which I now intend to do. However, I don’t see any merit in actually going through what seems like two months of torturous spreadsheet compiling.
What did I do?
Immediately, in the meeting, I asked more probing questions to confirm my view of what I thought was being asked to ensure there wasn’t more to it; there wasn’t. I then explained my particular circumstance which immediately confirmed to me that my requirements were not communicated when my stand-in boss set-up the sustainability work I had asked for. It’s not a massive issue but my view is that it all too easily fell into place and solved a resourcing issue but which neglected to consider my needs. I’m not suggesting for a minute that I’m above doing this type of work, or doing as I’m asked in general, but when you consider that we are actually employed under unique circumstances then something needed to be said.
On reporting this to my actual boss, who happened to arrive back on the day this meeting took place, his view was pretty clear-cut. He said “I thought that was just admin work, like what they give to graduates, you’re not going to get anything out of that”.
His view echoes my main justification. I am better off spending those two months project leading on another tenancy fitout project and putting into practice all that I have learnt from my current project lead role and gaining more experience in competencies A1 and A2; also on my DAP.
What did I learn?
You are the master of your own destiny throughout your attachment. Well I actually knew that already but it has been a good example of reinforcing it. No one is going to drive you to follow your DAP so when situations like this arise you have to stand your ground and speak up; with carefully considered and justified reasons that is.
In other News
With all this talk of snow I thought I’d share Perth’s weather forecast…so what? Yes my A/C at home has been working over time.
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Thanks for the weather update Fran, I was getting pretty concerned about your vitamin D deficiency 😉
On a similar note I had to ask for more work last week after being left with nothing in my inbox. The placements certainly require work and keeping your ear to the ground for suitable work.
Henry,
There’s certainly plenty of work here at NDY, it is like you say, making sure it’s suitable.
Hi Fran, looks like a sensible move to let people know your concerns and get something else sorted out. The level of sustainability attainment required for chartered review seems to be hard to judge. Perhaps delving into a full time sustainability role would have been too much anyway.
A few of the people I am working with who are trying to get chartered at the moment say they are struggling for sustainability evidence but when you talk to them about what they have designed quite a lot seems to come up. The idea of leading continuous improvement in sustainability or something similar in ICE attribute wording makes it sound like a very high level requirement. However, my feeling from previous students is that a decent appreciation of social, environmental and economic aspects in your area of work, which might come through a look at the green star method, are a good starting point. Wider aspects in the designs you are producing almost certainly have aspects of the 3 things above which you could explain your involvement in. I have found it very useful just to talk to people to discuss things to do with sustainability to progress my understanding of the subject and it sounds like you are doing lots of that already.
Damian, I agree with you. I’ve seen some exemplar applications for both CIBSE and IMechE where sustainability is covered off by nothing more than mentioning that the company the individual works for is ISO 14001 accredited. Perhaps it’s a case that individuals have got more to talk about than the blurb, or perhaps they’re weak on sustainability, but stronger elsewhere.
Fran,
Good call and good blog topic. Thanks for sharing hot off the press. ICE used to have a guidance nbote on demonstrating commitmtne tto sustainability at review but it’s been lost in the web redesign! we do have a specialist panel! https://www.ice.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/sustainability-guidance-panel
Fran
A sensible call. Competence E will be the last thing discussed at PRI and there really is no “one size fits all”, as you highlight this is a whole sub industry in is own right.
From the IMechE point of view the application form really is just the starter for discussion, Richard’s observation about the examplars saying “I work in an ISO 14000 accredited organization” is enough, the panel will ask you what that entails, how you contribute to sustainability and what you understand by it. More often than not understanding the components of sustainability and how you manage the trade off between them is what they are after. Try to remember that this sits with the code of conduct and this years hot competence, E5 (ethics) when you prepare – your thrust towards A and B competences is a good focus.
If the ICE have a panel then the IMechE will have a group and will have a longer name:
https://www.imeche.org/get-involved/special-interest-groups/energy-environment-and-sustainability-group/about-the-energy-environment-and-sustainability-group
Mark,
Thanks for the reassurance. I had a look at the Green Star template this morning and an example of understanding the trade offs, but not necessarily between other components of sustainability, is between general design.
Our current building has recently installed updated End of Trip facilities, in particular new cycle storage and changing facilities. It may be much better than before (I never say it) but the designers either forgot about stakeholder engagement, which was my initial thought, or they had some other difficult decisions to make. Basically, the layout is very poor and you end up having to walk down corridors between the communal male and female locker room and separate showers with hands full juggling clothes, shoes, towel, washing stuff and having to operate your swipe card door access. Very trivial I know but now I think I can see why it was designed as so. Bike parks, lockers and change facilities for 10% of the building occupancy will net you 2pts. Then there is an additional 1pt for visitor bike parks and facilities the same – but they have to be kept separate.
So what am I getting at? It just seems that, although the point of sustainability initiatives being to benefit the environment, reduce inefficiencies and make for a better place to work, this example is driving the requirement to climb the points ladder to the detriment of the basic function of the design thus making it pretty poor.
Damo,
For some reason I am unable to reply directly to your comment. It is reassuring to hear that the requirement seems a little too high a level according to your colleagues and simply reviewing a Green star points template on a current project may be all that is needed to understand and then be able to talk around it at PRI. Just to clarify, I never intended to move into the sustainability dept. full time; I would still be conducting other work but I didn’t want to waste what valuable time I have left on menial stuff.