Why Finch v Surrey County Council is important
Keating predicted that the case would heavily influence ICE members’ decision-making. The court’s ruling meant that “ethical questions can tip over legally into professional duties that can become recognised in law”, she said.
Although Finch v Surrey County Council concerned the planned extraction of a fossil fuel, Keating noted: “In principle, the findings from that case can extend much further to other types of projects.”
The 2024 judgement has been cited as a precedent in various other civil cases. For instance, environmentalists have disputed authorities’ decisions to approve proposed infrastructure projects, with courts quashing planning applications because these hadn’t accurately reported assets’ lifetime emissions.
This was the case with the A5 upgrade in Northern Ireland. The project was halted because the Department for Infrastructure hadn’t met all of its obligations under the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 before authorising the scheme.
Keating stressed that, while projects won’t necessarily be denied consent for having big carbon impacts, it’s important that engineers understand the “full emissions price” of any planned work.
A proposed upgrade of the A5 in Northern Ireland was halted as the Department for Infrastructure was found not to have met all of its obligations under the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022
What choices will become indefensible?
Paula McMahon, the ICE’s trustee for professional conduct and ethics, spoke at the forum about other key climate-related concerns in the infrastructure sector.
These had been discussed in a series of roundtables that the ICE held last year with the Institution of Structural Engineers, she said. Asset owners, designers and contractors highlighted common choices that they believed would no longer be considered acceptable by 2035.
Examples included:
Profit over planet: in general, making rapid returns on an infrastructure project remains a higher priority than ensuring its sustainability.
Demolition as default: re-use has yet to be embedded as a standard practice, with components still being designed for disposal.
Procurement blind spots: contracts still rarely require suppliers to align with the PAS 2080 carbon management standard and/or minimise their carbon impacts.
Camilla ter Haar, Keating’s fellow barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, noted that these choices were “consistently raised by all roundtable groups as increasingly difficult to defend”.
Taking the most sustainable course of action when faced with such dilemmas “could soon become widely recognised as an ethical or legal obligation in the future”, she stressed.
Get involved
The ICE Decarbonisation Community holds three forums a year to discuss ways to embed effective carbon management in infrastructure delivery. Covering topics ranging from lower-carbon materials to ethical decision-making, these sessions also showcase best-practice applications of PAS 2080. For information about future forums, contact amanda.rice@ice.org.uk.
Amanda Rice is climate programme specialist at the ICE
Image credits: iStock/claudiodivizia/Ballygally View Images
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