12 Nov 2009
The Institution of Engineering and Technology,
Solving Global Challenges demands Ethical Leadership
1. Welcome and introduction
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
First, I'd like to say how delighted and privileged I am to be speaking at this prestigious event, and before such a distinguished audience. Of course, my special thanks go to our hosts, the Institute of Engineering and Technology, for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts with you.
It is indeed a privilege to be here at this podium. This address has a long and honourable history. For more than three decades, it has provided a forum for examining and debating aspects of engineering that impact the public interest.
When I received the invitation to speak, I looked through the list of speakers who have stood at this podium since Earl Mountbatten of Burma in 1978. It reads like a roll-call of British engineering innovation. I hope I can live up to that proud heritage.
2. My topic
Last year, The Lord Browne of Madingley, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, added a further insightful chapter to the engineering profession's story, examining the increasingly central role of engineers in society.
This evening I'd like to build on his observations by examining one area of responsibility that, while clear, is increasingly central to the role of an engineer - specifically - namely the imperative to behave ethically.
Ultimately, fulfilling this responsibility comes down to the need for ethical leadership - as crucial to the future of engineering, as engineering is crucial to the future of society.
Over the next twenty minutes or so, I'll try to summarise my views on why ethical leadership matters in engineering, and how four key stakeholders might work together to bring about enhanced ethical leadership. I look forward to discussing these ideas with you at the end of the formal lecture. Although of course I accept there may be some questions that wander off my chosen subject!
3. Setting the scene: a vital role to play - bringing responsibilities with it
My argument about ethics in engineering begins not with engineers themselves, but with the massive global challenges facing mankind today.
Global warming, poverty, food and water shortages, terrorism, increasingly sophisticated organised crime, energy sustainability and security. As we know all too well, the list of challenges goes on.
To create a viable and sustainable future for both our species and the planet, mankind needs to rise to these challenges, and tackle them effectively. Across the world, engineers will play a critical role, in fact, the critical role in enabling our societies to do this.
All these challenges demand groundbreaking solutions, that use existing and new technologies in new and different ways, whether it's geo-engineering, to mitigate climate change or mobile banking, to help extend financial inclusion in emerging countries, thereby supporting the drive to reduce poverty.
As mankind sets out on the quest for such solutions, the ability of engineers to envision the previously unimaginable and then turn it into reality has never been more vital.
However, every step forward brings with it wider implications, and often unforeseen impacts on society.
As engineers, we deliver solutions, that's what we do. But historically, we have often been so focused on delivering those solutions that all other considerations fade into the background. Including the ethical dimensions of our work and our behaviour.
4. Ethical implications go far beyond health and safety
So, what kind of ethical impacts am I talking about?
The most obvious issues and risks are in areas such as health and safety, both of the engineering workforce itself, and also of manufacturers, distributors and end-users of the solutions they create. These health and safety impacts have long been central to engineers' thinking, underlined of course by legislation.
Sadly, occasional failures do still occur.
In the defence sector we were given a sobering reminder of the consequences what happens when processes and procedures and equipment fail. Haddon-Cave's report into the tragic loss of the RAF's Nimrod XV230 raised wide ranging issues for all those involved to consider, something that I know is happening as a matter of priority.
We have accepted full responsibility for any failings on our part and apologise unreservedly for them.
A focus on safety is therefore an established and fundamental principle in today's engineering workplaces and solutions. But of course, most of us can always do better.
Today, as engineers seek to solve profound and truly global challenges in an increasingly interconnected world the potential ethical impacts of their work go way beyond health and safety.
And the unprecedented nature and scale of the challenges currently facing mankind, mean that finding solutions is not just desirable, but an absolute imperative. Failure is not an option. Nevertheless, engineers should not overlook or even set aside the ethical implications and consequences of the solutions they advocate.
Engineers' focus on finding solutions means ethical conflicts and dilemmas may emerge at a later stage, after the solution has been developed and launched. When this happens, it can undermine the perceived value of the engineers' contribution, and erode public support for their achievements.
Worst of all, this may even prevent the benefits of their work from impacting those who need the benefits most.
5. Some examples - raising more questions than answers
By way of illustration, I'll now give a few examples of these dilemmas. None of them has an easy solution and I won't attempt to provide one this evening. But the first step towards resolving dilemmas is to know they're there.
- Firstly, take close circuit television technology - CCTV. Should engineers have known or cared that the public would end up being monitored, or at least feel they're being monitored by cameras on every street corner? Today, everyone who uses the London Underground is videoed. Some say that without security, there's no freedom. So is ubiquitous CCTV an invasion of privacy, or a comfort for law-abiding people?
- An even more far-reaching example is the ability for organisations to track the digital footprints that we all leave behind us every day. Every time you make a phone call, use the internet, send an email, go through an airport, or carry out myriad other everyday activities you're creating an electronic audit trail that can be captured and aggregated using data mining software. True, this can be used for positive ends, for example helping insurance companies identify fraudulent claims, or security forces track down possible terrorists. But again, it raises questions around civil liberties.
- Other dilemmas can arise from environmental impacts. Perhaps you've seen, driven or helped create high-performance cars and aircraft that break speed records, thus creating jobs and spearheading innovation in vehicle design, yet which also emit higher levels of carbon. Should an engineer refuse to work for a Formula 1 team?
- What about wind and tidal turbines, which can help reduce emissions in the battle against climate change, but may damage the natural environment by affecting bird migration and sea-life, and can disturb people's lives through side-effects such as noise.
- Or, finally, consider engineering solutions which identify and exploit much-needed oil reserves in remote areas helping to improve energy security and sustain our society, but also endangering delicate local ecosystems, and possibly the global climate itself.
Each of these ethical impacts represents an argument with two sides, either of which any of us could argue, should we chose to.
By their nature, ethical issues are complex and often involve conflicting priorities and imperatives. So they can give rise to more questions than answers. More debate than agreement. More heat than light.
But the important thing is to recognise the ethical dimensions and dilemmas at the earliest possible stage, and to discuss them openly and transparently.
6. Risk decisions
And at heart of resolving these dilemmas is the ability to make an informed judgement call on a balance of risks.
The benefits that engineering can deliver to society are huge. But these benefits can never be entirely free from risk.
Every day, engineers - under guidance from regulators - make risk decisions on behalf of many, for example the manufacturers or users of a solution, or populations at large. The UK's current move towards nuclear power is a very topical example - as last week's announcements illustrate.
Inevitably, the risks that are being weighed up in these cases do sometimes occur, perhaps resulting in injury or loss of life. Some of these incidents are genuine failures of engineering. Others are improbable events that are recognised and mitigated in the risk assessment, but which then happen anyway, despite the best efforts of all concerned.
In truth, few people take much interest in these decisions when they are made. Instead, when an engineering solution goes wrong or is misused, critics are quick to disregard the attempts to mitigate and reduce risk wherever possible.
I think we could learn something more here from the medical profession, which uses lay people to comment on society's attitudes to risk. If we took such an approach in engineering, perhaps we would get a more rational response to the inevitable dilemmas that arise around what we do. And maybe we could be more confident in the ethical judgements we take.
7. Epitomising the challenges: autonomous systems
Here's a further example that I think epitomises the complexity of the ethical challenge facing engineers: Autonomous Systems.
This fast-emerging area of technology includes systems ranging from fully robotic 'driverless' vehicles to artificial automated companions, which can provide practical and emotional support and intelligent remote monitoring for isolated people.
The ethical dilemmas facing engineers and engineering around Autonomous Systems were highlighted in a recent study from the Royal Academy of Engineering.
- As the report pointed out, these systems can bring major benefits, such as:
- reduced congestion and higher levels of safety on the roads;
- the ability for families to monitor older relatives' living patterns - has dad got up? Opened the fridge? Taken his medicine?;
- and the ability to put fewer military personnel at risk in hazardous operations.
But each of these potential benefits also brings ethical questions:
- Firstly, robotic cars: when something goes wrong with an autonomous vehicle system and it causes a crash, who is responsible: the designer, manufacturer, operator? Or any combination of the three? Or perhaps none of them?
- Secondly, remote monitoring: if you can check out on dad from a hundred miles away, will you go and visit him less often thereby depriving him of the human contact he really needs and deserves?
- And thirdly, military operations: recent aerial bombing of suspected terrorist strongholds in Pakistan is on a par with previous operations in places such as Kosovo. But this current campaign is receiving far less attention in the media because unmanned craft are being used, and fewer pilots' lives are at risk. Is this reduced public scrutiny justifiable ethically, given that the impact of the bombing is the same on the ground?
8. Four key stakeholders
I make no apology for having no ready answers to all the dilemmas I have raised.
But what I would say, is that each of them underlines the need for a healthy and open public debate on what engineering is trying to achieve for society, and on the sometimes unintended consequences of these efforts.
This debate needs to be led by the four key stakeholders in the search for engineering solutions: universities, professional bodies, government, and industry.
By working together to provide the right ethical leadership, these four participants can help to define, shape and embed the right ethical behaviours. Equally crucial, they can do this without curtailing engineers' ability to innovate.
Why do I say this is crucial? Because there is a real risk in requiring engineers to be bound by the potential ethical implications arising from the use of new developments. The risk is this will act as a barrier to innovation.
If engineers are expected to avoid designing something because it could be used in an unethical way then this also reduces the opportunity for the design to be used in ethical ways, and limits the potential benefits that may result. Again, nuclear power comes to mind - a parallel outcome of splitting the atom, alongside nuclear weapons. What's more, there is a clear role for other stakeholders, notably governments in ensuring designs are used appropriately, since the application of technology is often beyond engineers' control.
I'll now map out what I think each of the four critical stakeholders could and should do to foster ethical leadership in engineering and I'll challenge each of them to deliver steps to encourage that leadership.
Bur first, a brief word on leadership itself.
Leadership needs to exist at every level of an organisation all the way from the board, through the executive teams, to managers and project team leaders to individual employees themselves. While it is important to lead with courage and understanding to get the best out of any team, there is an additional factor that is often overlooked. This is the example that leaders set through their day-to-day behaviour and the way they treat people.
Leaders at every level should always remember that it is the way things are actually said or done that is copied rather than the way the organisation says they should be said or done.
That is why, when we at BAE Systems asked Lord Woolf to chair a committee to review and set the highest ethical standards for our company, we made it crystal clear that we would accept and implement each and every one of its recommendations. As a consequence, the committee's recommendations have become not only an ethical code for BAE Syste,s, but also a programme of action which everyone in the company can see being implemented.
9. Universities
So, let's examine the role of our four critical stakeholders. First, universities.
Today, degree courses in disciplines such as medicine and law and even MBAs focus strongly on ethical considerations. I believe ethics should also become an essential and integral part of engineering degrees.
We're currently some way from making this a reality. The RAEng has produced a 'curriculum map' showing how ethics can be incorporated into an engineering degree. But research by the Academy among university heads of engineering in the UK found that only 41 per cent who responded thought their courses delivered the curriculum's aims to a 'substantial' level.
More positively, the research revealed signs that the teaching of ethics is set to grow with 38 per cent planning to increase it over the next two years, and a further 24 per cent over the next five.
This progress is encouraging, but I don't believe it's fast enough. Our undergraduate engineers will one day be working in a real world where ethics matters. Universities need to prepare them for this.
10. Professional bodies
Second, let's examine the professional bodies in engineering and there are a great number!
Looking again to medicine and law these have professional bodies charged with policing the ethics of practitioners and require those practitioners to join these bodies and submit to their regulation.
This isn't quite so straightforward in engineering. In the UK, pretty much anyone can call themselves an engineer, and of itself making it obligatory to join professional bodies such as the IET, or vastly expanding the fellowship of the RAEng, would not necessarily increase awareness of ethical issues.
There's also a widespread view that professions such as medicine have perhaps gone too far in terms of ethical regulation, reflecting fears over litigation.
While avoiding such excesses, the professional bodies I've mentioned are making great strides towards promoting ethical behaviour. The IET recently launched a new professional ethics webzone offering a range of interactive case studies to help engineers practise exercising their judgement in ethically challenging situations.
And the RAEng is considering formulating a set of ethical principles that engineers could sign up to as a public statement of their behaviour. There is already an Engineering Ethics Working Group reviewing ethical issues in the sector.
These are clearly moves in the right direction. But again, we need to do more.
11. Government
Third, what should governments do to help increase the engineering profession's ethical leadership?
The huge procurement muscle of governments worldwide puts them in the strongest position to set and push through ethical standards in engineering.
What's more, they also control or influence the uses to which a lot of engineering solutions are put, whether it is unmanned aircraft or CCTV cameras.
A positive step forward would be for each country to appoint a government chief engineer responsible not just for innovation, but for ethical innovation. A chief scientific adviser is important but it is not generally until the engineering application that the ethical issues emerge. So we need a chief engineer.
And governments need to accept that scientific advisers have an ethical obligation to speak their minds, and not to act only as a mouthpiece for government.
12. Industry
Last but not least, let's consider the role for industry in fostering ethical leadership. Now this is a huge subject one that I could have spent this whole speech talking about. And I'm sure there will be questions at the end about what the industry could and should do. But I'll try to be as brief as I can.
Having worked all my life for engineering multinationals, I've come to the view that these businesses have a huge responsibility - and ability - to help developing countries with nation-building.
If you look at Transparency International's league table of global corruption, you'll see that there are precious few consistently successful economies towards the bottom of the list. It follows that endemic corruption is a barrier to economic success. By definition, these countries need higher ethical standards in business conduct to help them develop economically, and ultimately improve the wellbeing of their people.
So my view is that engineering multinationals should not refuse to operate in corrupt countries. Instead, they should go there and undertake projects - engage, but make it crystal clear to governments that they will do so only on their own terms, and in line with their own global ethical standards. This will help to tackle corruption in the country's economy, and foster its long-term economic development and success as a nation.
This is one of the reasons why it's vital for all businesses and especially those with heavy engineering content and strong international operations to apply a clear and consistent code of conduct everywhere they operate.
I have already referred to action on the Woolf Committee's recommendations. Based on these, BAE Systems launched our globally applicable Code of Conduct in January this year. The Code encapsulates the standards of business conduct we expect of all our employees, wherever they work in the world. It's an unequivocal public statement of what we stand for, and how we do business.
What does it embrace? Let me quote directly from the executive summary of the Woolf Report, to illustrate some of its recommendations which - as I have explained - are, for us, a programme of action.
On the role of the Board of directors, the report says: "There should be an explicit assessment of ethical and reputational risks in all business decisions taken by the Board." Absolutely. And this is actually pretty consistent with UK company law these days.
On the role of the Corporate Responsibility Committee, Woolf says: "The Board Corporate Responsibility Committee should have primary responsibility for oversight and reporting on standards of ethical business conduct, and the management of reputational risk." Agreed. And risk is being considered widely by both the Walker Report and the FRC's review of the Combined Code in the UK.
Woolf again: "The company's Internal Audit function should ensure that ethical business conduct and the management of reputational risk is specifically assessed in all audit reports." Not all companies do this yet. Perhaps they should.
I could quote many more passages from Woolf, but I'll read you just one more, on the linkage between ethics and remuneration: "Members of the senior executive team have both a personal and collective responsibility to demonstrate high standards of ethical business conduct, and to achieve effective implementation of the global code. Both should be reflected in their performance appraisals, and in the variable element of their remuneration."
These are all excellent practices that I think every business in the engineering industry should adopt. However, the big challenge in applying global standards is the wide diversity of what constitutes 'acceptable' behaviour in different countries and cultures.
Ultimately, the key here is always to be transparent and have courage in one's convictions. If asked your technical opinion for example you must deliver an honest one, not just what people want to hear. And in my opinion facilitation payments should not be made. In BAE Systems' case, we apply a strict policy of zero facilitation payments, unless there are clear safety reasons for making one. No other justification is allowed. If a facilitation payment is made for this reason it should be transparently recorded.
13. Closing thought
In the past 20 minutes I've probably raised more questions than answers. By their nature, ethical questions do not lend themselves to easy solutions, since they demand that we reconcile conflicting pressures and points of view.
But we cannot afford to shy away from the ethical dimension simply because it is difficult. And we all have a role to play and example to set in embedding ethical awareness and behaviour in engineering globally - and in our companies.
Failure to do this would prevent the full transformational impact and benefits of engineering solutions from feeding through to society worldwide.
What's needed is ethical leadership from all key stakeholders:
- from universities, by including ethics in degrees;
- from professional bodies, through agreed ethical principles;
- from governments, through ethical procurement and implementation;
- and from industry, by embedding ethical behaviours through Board-level governance and employee codes of conduct.
Having raised many questions, I now look forward to yours!
Thank you.
