Engineering Ethics: Safety, Environment, and Culture

Introduction

As the men and women behind everything from public infrastructure to consumer product design, engineers have a distinct ethical obligation to uphold standards of safety. However, there is more to engineering ethics than the assurance that safety standards are met or exceeded. Engineers also need to adhere to a policy resonant with corporate social responsibility: working in accordance with global values like environmental conservation and sustainability. Another key component of engineering ethics relates to the globalized nature of engineering work: engineers frequently find themselves working in countries and cultures different from their own. The occasional conflicts that arise between local and home values may present unique ethical conundrums that engineers can overcome with critical thinking and cultural awareness.

Safety Obligations and Acceptable Risk

Safety is the most apparent of all ethical obligations placed upon engineers throughout their careers. The first provision of the American Society of Civil Engineers, as with other engineering professional organizations, reads: "Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the performance of their professional duties" (American Society of Civil Engineers, n.d.). In fact, engineers may frequently play a role in shaping public policy and regulatory standards to improve the safety of design and infrastructure. As new technologies, materials, and methods emerge in the marketplace, engineering ethics will advance and become more relevant.

Engineers are called upon to determine the safety of the products they design or oversee. A product can never be rushed to market before engineers have completed their oversight. The determination of product safety requires tests and assessments conducted through rigorous, evidence-based practice (McBain & Balasonne, 2016). Government regulations often provide assessment standards, but individual organizations or industries may offer their own more stringent rules that engineers can follow. Conflicts can arise when a for-profit firm's need to rush a product to market to achieve return on investment clashes with the need to improve that product's safety. A product that has not cleared all legal safety requirements is not ready for the marketplace, and engineers need the personal and professional integrity to withstand pressure from marketing departments.

The recent issue with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 battery reveals an interesting case study in engineering ethics. In this case, the engineers working for Samsung could not identify the root cause of the battery problem (Akolawala, 2016). Although the recall and the stoppage in production cost the company billions of dollars, Samsung chose safety over finances, going so far as to shut down the specific machines that had been manufacturing the Galaxy Note in its Korean facilities (Akolawala, 2016). Engineers are held to a high standard when making decisions that affect the consumer — decisions more consequential than those affecting a company's bottom line. That said, engineers are also ethically responsible for remaining loyal to the companies that employ them, though one's professional conduct within any firm is distinct from one's professional obligations to the public.

The ethical dilemmas engineers face sometimes relate to how to balance the need for public safety with honoring design hierarchy: the push toward innovative products, the use of new materials, or new design criteria ("Ethical Issues in Engineering Design," n.d.). Ethical standards can be ambiguous in these situations. The principle of acceptable risk is of particular interest to engineers, who understand that a certain degree of risk may be embedded into the decision-making process (Habli, Kelly, Macnish, et al., 2015). In each situation, the engineer can assess a design's impact on public safety and is morally obliged to work with colleagues to improve the safety of their designs and products.

When a level of acceptable risk has been agreed upon in consensus with colleagues — especially teams of engineers researching the same issue — decisions to proceed or make changes can be made accordingly. Engineers sometimes need to come forward with information, sharing warnings or concerns with the public or informing their marketing team and technical writers about how to appropriately alert consumers. Being pressured to remain silent about possible safety hazards is not an acceptable justification for silence; an engineer needs to be empowered to make ethical choices and will enjoy the support of professional organizational affiliations when making difficult decisions that might otherwise harm a career. Risk uncertainty, and the honesty and integrity to admit to that uncertainty, are also ethical issues that engineers can mitigate through teamwork and collaboration.

Environmental Ethics and Sustainability

Engineers can make decisions that promote environmental ethics, including issues related to immediate pollution and long-term sustainability. By using sustainable materials and methods, an engineer can uphold the integrity of a firm's environmental ethics policies and help raise the environmental standards of the industry as a whole. It is an engineer's moral responsibility to remain current with new materials and methods and to incorporate them into projects. Because public policy reform in the area of environmental sustainability has been slow, and because of tensions between different countries, regions of operation, and private sectors, engineers need to operate under the provisions of their own professional ethics.

One of the tenets of the National Society of Professional Engineers (2016) reads: "Engineers are encouraged to adhere to the principles of sustainable development in order to protect the environment for future generations." This obligation holds regardless of the prevailing laws governing their respective sectors or specific geographic regions of operation. Not all engineers have the authority to make decisions related to materials selection and production methods, but those who do have an ethical obligation to choose methods and materials that are sustainable.

Environmental ethics can be tied to, or framed by, the overarching ethic of public safety, given the direct and immediate impacts of pollution on individual and public health. Engineers have the ability to directly affect water quality and air quality, with potentially harmful consequences for public health. Social justice concerns may also play into the engineer's responsibilities, because of the link between manufacturing plant locations and socioeconomic inequalities (Michelfelder & Jones, 2013). Immediate toxins and pollutants, however, are only one facet of the broader engineering ethics related to environmental justice and sustainability. The longer-term impacts of engineering on climate change and pollution also need to be considered part of professional duty. As Michelfelder & Jones (2013) argue, "sustainability should be included in the paramountcy clause because it is a necessary condition to ensure the safety, health, and welfare of the public" (p. 237). Engineers stand at the forefront of guiding, leading, and directing public policy in engineering and of promoting sustainable practices. As with public safety ethics, environmental ethics often reveals the importance of acceptable risk frameworks, which can frequently be quantified by the engineering ethicist.

Conclusion

What individual engineers do in their daily lives or throughout their career paths can impact the lives of consumers and the general public. Public safety, social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and cultural competence are all primary areas of concern for the individual engineer. How an individual conducts oneself and the decisions one makes are only one aspect of engineering ethics. From an organizational leadership perspective, company policies and human resources decisions need to be made with close attention to ethical obligations. The suppliers a company chooses reflect its commitment to social justice and environmental sustainability. Likewise, leadership decisions about hiring practices or about entering countries with weak regulatory structures that permit gross ethical infractions represent another macro-level ethical concern. It is not only the individual engineer who can make an impact on the profession, but leaders in organizations overseeing engineering work who possess the power to alter organizational and regulatory policy.

References

Akolawala, T. (2016). Samsung engineers unable to isolate the reason for Galaxy Note 7 explosions. Gadgets360.

American Society of Civil Engineers (n.d.). The engineering code of ethics.

"Ethical issues in engineering design: Safety and sustainability." (n.d.). 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology.

Habli, I., Kelly, T., Macnish, K., et al. (2015). The ethics of acceptable safety.

McBain, J., & Balasonne, J. (2016). Product safety case studies. SCU.

Michelfelder, D., & Jones, S. A. (2013). Sustaining engineering codes of ethics for the 21st century. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19(1), 237–258.

National Society of Professional Engineers (2016). Code of ethics.