David Roberts, Reflect Critically and Act Fearlessly: A Survey of Ethical Codes, Guidance and Access in Built Environment Practice, (London: Bartlett Ethics Commission, 2019). 

This paper sets out for the first time a comprehensive study of the ethical dimensions of the built environment professions. Its constructive critique is principally oriented to professional bodies for architecture, analysing the codes of conduct and practical guidance of the ARB and RIBA against sixty-four other UK and international built environment professions ranging across construction, design, energy, engineering, heritage, planning, project management, surveying, sustainability and transport.

The paper argues that, perhaps more than other professions, the process of conceiving, making, using and transforming the built environment is aligned to ecological, social and material conditions. Practitioners need to be aware of increasing resource scarcity, inequality, and power imbalances as they can hardly dissociate the success of their work from the solution they bring to those problems. Built environment practice therefore demands an ethical standpoint. There is no point where practitioners can absent themselves from it. But the decisions they take will always have a cost personally, professionally or publicly. Professional bodies consequently have a vital role to play in supporting practitioners to approach and act on these knotty dilemmas from an informed and empowered position.

It concludes with a set of recommendations: To address contemporary challenges, codes of conduct should empower practitioners to reflect critically and act fearlessly. To identify, analyse and respond effectively to the specific ethical dilemmas raised by their work, professional bodies should provide free guidance tools to practitioners. To involve the public and contribute to informed public debate, institutions should strive to remove all barriers to discussions and resources.