LAND JOURNAL

The role of surveyors in the ethics of land use

The RICS’ sustainable development pioneers gave substance to the idea that professional ethics is more than just conduct – ethics must shape our work through understanding the social, environmental and economic impact of what we do

Author:

Stephen Hill

08 October 2020

Ethical practice

Planning and development

Sustainability

The work done, in the early 2000s, by the RICS Sustainability Working Group and by the EU Advisory Group on sustainable property investment and management, and their understanding of the climate change challenges at that time, remains relevant to today’s world. Much still needs to be done in response to the global financial crisis, the climate emergency, COVID-19, and the prospect of more change and uncertainty.

Professional attitudes

The way we talk about land use suggests that professional attitudes, as they respond to change, can easily dilute the connection between social and economic need, and the Charter’s injunction to satisfy both needs in section 3c. The integrity of the evidence used to rationalise investment decisions and determine values can be easily and casually undermined by everyday unethical habits – as the following overheard-at-work conversations suggest:

“I think you misunderstand what is going on here. Our job is to get planning for our client, promise as little as possible – at planning – and sell the client’s land for as much as possible.” In countering proposals for sustainable development, perhaps this speaker, the head of a major land and planning team, misunderstood the difference between his firm’s business model and the intentions of its institutional landowner client determined to promote a truly sustainable urban extension to justify the use of green belt land, and to de-risk a 30-year plus investment that would be resilient to future climate change and energy shortage uncertainties.

Surveyor 1: “Busy?” Surveyor 2: “Soooo busy! Rushed off my feet with viability appraisals for developers wanting to avoid providing affordable housing.” RICS has spent considerable time reshaping the Financial viability in planning: conduct and reporting guidance note, in a less-than-perfect public policy environment. Ensuring that surveyors act in the public interest in this type of work has been a major preoccupation. A few surveyors and planners have not helped by openly advertising how to minimise or avoid public policy obligations: even suggesting their clients can “go on a nice holiday” with the money they have saved, latterly changed to “now you can start your project”.

I use these and other real cases in ethics workshops with mid-career planning and development professionals. The speakers rather miss the point about what is needed to make development on any scale work well, both socially and economically, and sustain values long term. “Fraud against the public interest” is probably the neatest and most printable reaction I have heard from my students. Next time, their verdict may be more severe, as initial research from the Office for National Statistics links higher rates of COVID-19 mortality in London to overcrowding, homelessness and poor housing conditions arising from insufficient affordable housing. “Some lives matter less than others”… perhaps?

The role of experts: scientists and surveyors

In recent months, politicians around the world have been responding to COVID-19 in ways that aim to balance social and economic priorities: some weighted very differently from others, but each reflecting their own political economies. Scientists are called on to provide informed, objective advice. Politicians ‘follow the science’ to varying degrees, but the political responsibility is theirs alone.

The political choices are not just about the social need to protect national health and save lives. Balancing the social need with safeguarding the economy are the subjects around which the science and ethical and political intelligence must be deployed. That is not so different from the ownership and use of land. What we do to, on and with land, encompasses everything that enables us to survive, do business and live well.

The stewardship of that land is a long-term business. Land professionals, therefore, have an enduring responsibility to the public interest to use their knowledge, skill and judgement in ways that must transcend both political tenures and events, and even national boundaries.

Take the example of community land held under customary ownership, estimated by Peter Veit (Land Journal May/June 2019), to be about 50% of all land globally. He describes how community land can be acquired or seized by force by governments or corporations without the knowledge, approval or consent of communities, and often without paying fair or any compensation. Apart from the loss of life often involved, “this raises serious human rights issues as community land is a primary source of income and livelihood, establishes social identity and security, has cultural and spiritual significance, and generates significant social, economic, and environmental benefits for society.”

As James Kavanagh has also written (Land Journal March-April 2017 pp.6-8), this is not an exotic issue whose effects are limited to remote places and people, with not much connection to more general professional practice. As Rio Tinto has recently discovered, businesses everywhere will pay an increasingly high price for their greed and unethical ‘corporate vandalism’ of community land.

Why is ‘sustainable development’ intrinsically ethical?

If surveyors play such a critical guardian role for society for the use of land, then they must also have both the right and a duty to challenge the ethical basis of what the client, the market or politicians ask for. This must be at the level of specific projects and assignments, and at a thought leadership level about the remit of the profession and its role in shaping and sustaining the political economies within which we all have to survive and thrive.

But if, as the overheard conversations suggest, we can so casually lose the public interest thread that runs between evidence, value and rational investment choices, how will we surveyors fulfil the task of optimising the use of land to meet social and economic need, in the challenging times ahead? And how, in practical terms, can we demonstrate our accountability to the public whose interests we serve, and whose trust and respect we must retain?

Stephen Hill MRICS is director C2O futureplanners

smdhill@gmail.com